Re. Stranger Things

18 - Re - stranger things - off campus - boys of Tommen book series

[stranger-marauders]

shattered

twenty-eight: the dream

chapter summary: Kate tells the group about what she saw.

chapter warnings: language, steve's lil speech, canon-typical violence

word count: 4.9k

series masterlist | masterlist

KATE AND STEVE sat on Max’s bedroom floor until after the sun rose.

No one had tried to bother the two of them. Robin and Nancy had sat outside the door for a while, ready to barge inside Max’s room if he didn’t stop yelling at her. Whenever the yelling had stopped and they finally heard the light sobs from the other side of the door, they moved to the living room to sit with Eddie and the kids. Steve and Kate needed to be left alone.

Steve had probably cried more than Kate had as he squeezed her tight. He couldn’t exactly explain why. Normally he hated crying in front of people, especially her if he could help it. His father had always taught him that only pussies cry, and real men would never do such a thing. Something about the way her fingers raked through his scalp now had been more than enough to make him finally let go. Maybe it was because he’d almost died. Maybe it was because she’d almost died. Maybe it was because they’d both almost died again and they still hadn’t come close to getting rid of Vecna.

He didn’t want to let go of her. He had started to fall asleep, the adrenaline that had been pumping through his body for hours starting to fade. Steve wasn’t exactly in the most comfortable position with the way he was essentially laying on top of her, his head on her shoulder and his arms wrapped around her as she leaned against the wall still, but he didn’t care. She was safe, and that meant he could have a moment to relax.

Whenever the sun started peaking through the bedroom window, the soft oranges and reds of dawn dusting over them both, she rubbed his arm, careful not to touch anywhere that had been scabbed over. “Steve.”

“Hm?”

“Sun’s coming up.”

He jerked up to turn his head and look out the window. As its rays dusted his face, he squinted. “Shit.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He sighed, moving to lean against the wall next to her. “You gotta tell them what you told me. You know that, right?”

Terror struck her face. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Kathy, come on, you’ve got to,” he said, almost begging. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t tell you to if I didn’t think they didn’t need to know.”

She searched for an excuse. “The kids don’t need to hear about this.”

“The hell they don’t. I can’t do anything with what you told me, okay? I’m too stupid. Dustin, Nance, Robin, one of them… one of them might have an idea of what to do.” He stopped himself whenever he saw the horrified look on her face and her eyes glazed over. “What?”

Kate took a shaky breath. “I just don’t want to go through it again.”

“You won’t. I’m not… I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, okay? I won’t, and neither will they.” He took her hand in his, squeezing it tightly. “I’ll be right there the whole time, okay?”

She turned to look at him again, squeezing his hand in return. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

It hadn’t taken long for Kate to finally work up the courage to leave Max’s bedroom and tell the rest of the group everything she had seen while she was under Vecna’s spell.

She sat in one of the big chairs in Max’s living room, everyone gathered around her and focused on her. She felt like she was in some type of intervention that was staged against her, either that or she was in some type of group therapy session. She wasn’t quite sure that all of them knew about her episodes before now. Eddie, of course, didn't know about them, but she didn’t think the kids knew about them, either. If she was being honest with herself, she wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t ever told Robin or Nancy explicitly, either. Kate wasn’t used to sharing her feelings, especially not with a group as large as this one. Even when her father had died, she’d managed to remain as stoic as possible, not wanting to seem weak. Now, though, she was being forced to share what she’d seen.

Kate met Steve’s eyes again as he sat across from her. He nodded once, almost like he was encouraging her to go on. You can do this. She sighed as she glanced down to the floor. She thought if she accidentally met anyone’s eyes, especially his again, she would break.

Her voice was hoarse as she spoke. “He… showed me… things that haven’t happened yet. I mean, they were… terrible.” She paused, trying to shake the images from her mind. “I saw… a dark cloud. Spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this… giant creature with… a gaping mouth. And this thing, it wasn’t alone.” Her voice almost cracked. “There were so many monsters. An army. And they were… coming into Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods. Our homes. And then—” Kate paused, almost like she didn’t want to go on— “he showed me El. The Byers. You guys.” Steve. “And they… you were all…” She took a shaky breath to try and stop herself from sobbing again. She didn’t want to watch them all die again. She couldn’t.

“Okay, but,” Steve started, trying to talk her down again, “he’s just trying to scare you, Kathy. Right? I mean… I mean, it’s not real.”

“Not yet,” she said, almost inaudible. “But there… there was something else. How showed me these… these gates. Four of them. Spreading across Hawkins. And these gates, they looked like the one inside of Eddie’s trailer, but… they didn’t stop growing. And this wasn’t the Upside Down Hawkins.” Another tear slipped down her face. “This was our Hawkins. Our home.”

At first, no one knew what to say. The thought of Hawkins being engulfed by the Upside Down almost didn’t make any sense. After an idea hit Max, she finally spoke up. “Four chimes.” When everyone turned to look at her, she continued. “Vecna’s clock. It always chimes four times. Four exactly.”

“I heard them too,” Kate said softly.

“He’s been telling us his plan this whole time.”

“Four kills,” Lucas said, understanding what she meant. “Four gates.” He hesitated to finish, almost unable to look at Max. “End of the world.”

“If that’s true,” Dustin said, almost horrified, “then he’s one kill away.”

Eddie cupped his face in his hands. “Jesus Christ.”

Steve looked over at Max, which made her move back to the landline on the wall. “Try ‘em again. Try ‘em again!”

Max punched the Byers’ home phone number into the landline on the wall, trying for what seemed like the hundredth time attempting to reach them. Kate had tried telling them already that there was no use, and so had Nancy. The line had been busy for days now, which wasn’t helping her nerves in the slightest. Max once again proved her point whenever she hung the handset back on the hook. 

“Rang a few times, then went to a busy signal.”

“I told you,” Kate said softly, almost as if she had no hope for them. She could only hope that Jonathan, Will, Mike, and El were safe. Alive.

“Maybe you punched it in wrong,” Steve said, trying to remain hopeful. “Try again.”

“I didn’t punch it in wrong,” Max said defensively.

“Well, I mean, I don’t know.”

“I think she knows how to use a phone,” Dustin said to Steve.

“I’m just saying, she could’ve typed it in wrong.”

Max rang the phone number again, the same few rings and busy dial tone droning before she hung the handset back up. “Same shit.”

“How is that possible?”

“Joyce has this telemarket job. Always on the phone. Mike won’t stop whining about it,” Dustin said.

“Yeah, but this phone’s been busy for, what, three days now?” Max asked. “That’s not Joyce. No way. Something’s wrong.”

“She’s right. It can’t be just coincidence. It can’t be,” Nancy said. She then looked at Kate. “When was the last time you talked to them?”

She shrugged absently, almost like she didn’t know. “I–I don’t know. The day I came here, I guess.”

Nancy walked over to the window. “Whatever’s happening in Lenora is connected to all of this. I’m sure of it.” She paused. “But Vecna can’t hurt them.”

“Not if he’s dead,” Kate said, standing up out of her chair. Everyone’s attention turned back to her as she took a couple steps forward. “We have to go back there. Back to the Upside Down.”

“Woah, no, no, no. What?” Steve said, standing up and throwing his hands in the air. At first he couldn’t believe that she, of all fucking people, would even suggest such a thing, then he remembered that Kate had an actual death wish at all times. “Let’s think this through, okay?”

“What is there to think through?” she replied somewhat bitterly as he walked toward her.

“We barely made it out of there in one piece!” “Yeah, because we weren’t prepared,” Nancy said, stepping in to defend Kate. “But this time, we will be. We’ll get weapons and protection. We’ll go through the gate, we’ll find his lair, and we’ll kill him.”

“Or he’ll kill us!” Steve said. He couldn’t believe that Nancy was agreeing with her. He looked at Kate as he spoke again. “The only reason you survived is because he wanted you to. He’s not scared of us.”

“And for good reason,” Robin said, standing up to join the argument. “We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One. Sorry, what are we calling him now?”

“One,” Dustin and Lucas said.

“Vecna,” Erica answered.

“Henry,” Kate and Nancy said. 

“Right,” Robin replied, the unclear answer stressing her out more. As she spoke, she grew increasingly anxious. “We’ve learned something new about Vecna-slash-Henry-slash-One. He’s a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin. But my… m–my point is, he’s super powerful. He could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. It’s not a fair fight!” “Then why fight fair?” Dustin asked. “You’re right. He’s like Eleven. But that gives us an upper hand. We know Eleven’s strengths and weaknesses.”

“Weaknesses?” Erica asked.

“Believe it or not, she does actually have them,” Kate said.

“When El remote-travels, she goes into this sort of… some trance-like state. I bet the same is true of Vecna.”

“That would explain what he was doing in that attic,” Lucas said.

“Exactly. When he attacks his next victim, I’ll bet you he’s back in that attic, physical body defenseless.”

“Defenseless, yeah?” Steve asked, unconvinced. He pointed to his neck where a ligature mark still outlined where he’d been choked by the bat’s tail. “What about the army of bats?”

“Right. We will… have to find a way past them. Distract them somehow.”

“And, uh, how do we do that, exactly?” Eddie asked, standing up.

“No idea,” Dustin said, making Eddie sit back down reluctantly. “But once they’re gone, he doesn’t stand a chance. It’ll be like slaying sleeping Dracula in his coffin.”

“That all sounds good in theory, but there is no pattern to Vecna’s killings. At least not one that I can decipher,” Robin said. “We don’t know when he’s going to attack next. We don’t even know who he’s going to attack.”

“Yeah, we do,” Max said softly, making everyone turn toward her again. “I can still feel him. I’m still marked. Cursed.” She paused. “I ditch Kate Bush, I draw his focus back on me.”

“Max, you can’t,” Lucas said, almost as if he was begging. “He’ll kill you.”

“I survived before. I can survive again.” Lucas, however, wasn’t pleased with her words. “I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic. Then you can chop his head off. Stab him in the heart. Blow him up with some explosive Dustin and Kate cook up. I honestly—I really don’t care how you put this asshole in his grave, just… whatever you do… try not to miss.”

Even though no one truly liked the idea, not a single one of them protested.

“Okay, then where are we going to get weapons?” Nancy asked.

Eddie cleared his throat. “I think I have an idea.”

It didn’t take long for Max to find a phonebook for Eddie to look through, and then for everyone to gather around at her dining room table.

“Check this out. The War Zone,” he said, flipping pages in the phone book. “I’ve been there once. It’s huge. They got everything you need for, uh… well, killing things, basically.”

“Do you think fake Rambo has enough guns there?” Robin asked, pointing to the picture on the ad. “Is that a grenade? I mean, how is any of this legal?” “Well, lucky for us, it is, so…,” Eddie said, trying to get back on topic.

“Isn’t it outside of Hawkins?” Kate asked, looking over his shoulder to get a closer look at the ad. “The store, I mean?”

“Yeah, this… this place is just far enough outside of Hawkins. As long as we steer clear of the main roads, we oughta be able to avoid cops and, uh… angry hicks.”

“If we’re trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn’t go to some store called the War Zone,” Erica said. 

“Yeah, but is it worth the time?” Dustin asked. “It’ll take all day to bike there and back.”

“Who said anything about bikes?” Eddie asked.

“What, you got some sort of car we don’t know about?” Steve asked.

Eddie stood up straighter next to him, looking at him somewhat affectionately. “It’s not exactly a car, Steve, and it’s not exactly mine, but, uh… it’ll do.” He turned to Max. “Hey, Red, uh, you got a ski mask or a bandana, something like that?”

Max hesitated before grabbing him a Michael Myers mask, specifically the one that she wore for her Halloween costume two years ago. Once Eddie got his toolkit and put on his mask, he led the group of nine through the trailer park. Whenever Kate found that Eddie was heading toward a mobile trailer, she almost couldn’t believe she was actually going to help steal it. The thought, however, quickly left her: she’d done worse this week.

Eddie jumped through the back window of the RV, taking the mask off of his face as Steve jumped in after him. “That was suffocating.”

“Go! Come on,” Steve said softly as he helped Kate, Robin, Nancy, and the rest of the kids through the window. 

Eddie locked the front door of the trailer, sitting down in the driver’s seat as he began hot-wiring the vehicle. Steve and Kate came up behind him, watching as he started working on the RV.

“Where’d you learn how to do this?” Steve asked, somewhat concerned. 

“Well, when the other dads were teaching their kids how to fish or play ball, my old man was teaching me how to hot-wire. Now, I swore to myself I wouldn’t wind up as he did, but now, I’m wanted for murder, and soon, grand theft auto. So, uh, yeah, I’m really living up to that Munson name.”

Robin came up behind Steve and Kate, putting her hands on her shoulders. “Uh, Eddie, I’m not sure I love the idea of you driving.”

“Oh, I’m just starting this sucker.” Eddie then looked at Steve, smiling affectionately. “Harington’s got her.” He moved closer to his face before he spoke again. “Don’t ya, big boy?”

Whenever Steve gave a confused, almost flustered look, Kate’s eyebrows furrowed together. Was he actually fazed by that? She also couldn’t help but notice how affectionately Eddie gazed upon Steve, which made her think that maybe the rumors about Eddie Munson were true. Before she could ask any questions aimed at either of them, however, Eddie started the Winnebago, causing the owners outside lots of distress.

“Hey! Open this door!” the woman shouted, banging on the window. “They locked the door!”

Steve looked absolutely horrified.

“Shit, go!” he shouted, pushing Eddie out of the way as he jumped into the driver’s seat. Kate sat in the passenger’s seat, watching him anxiously as he tried to figure out how to drive the largest vehicle he’d ever had to operate. “It’s just a car,” he mumbled to himself before shouting, “Everybody, hang onto something!”

“Oh my God! Let’s go!”

“Drive, Steve! Drive!”

“Go, go, go!”

Steve, still barefoot, floored the gas pedal, making the Winnebago lurch forward suddenly. He drove as fast as he could to the trailer park, everyone screaming at him to go as fast as he could.

“Shit, they look pissed,” Dustin said as he looked out the back window.

“I mean, it’s not every day you lose your house and car in one fell swoop,” Robin replied, bouncing around because of Steve’s driving.

“Hold on! Hold on!” Steve shouted as he hit a couple of trash cans, doing his best at attempting a complete and fast turn.

As they turned out of the trailer park, Steve slowed down in an attempt to make it less obvious that he’d never driven a Winnebago before and that they’d just stolen it. It took a while, but he eventually got the swing of it. Kate had tried to let him focus on figuring out how to drive the damn thing, choosing not to speak for a while. As far as she knew, the biggest car he’d ever driven was hers, and he’d even had difficulty with Barry the first couple times he’d driven it. She knew how particular he was with driving. She had only driven the two of them somewhere a few times, and that had only been whenever he’d had concussions and had been barred from it. She, apparently, drove much too fast for his liking.

“How’s it handle?” she finally asked whenever he had seemed to calm down a bit.

“Not half bad,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the road. “Considering that this is a… house.”

Kate stifled a laugh, nodding slightly. “I never want to hear you complain about my driving ever again after pulling out of that trailer park the way you just did.”

“Jesus Christ, that was a one-time thing,” he said, somewhat annoyed. “You always drive like that, okay? Like, always. I mean, seriously, who taught you how to drive?”

“You did, you asshole!”

His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion for a minute before remembering that he had, in fact, tried teaching her how to drive sometime around sophomore year of high school for a bit before eventually giving up just because of how awful she’d been at it. He’d figured he’d rather not wreck his car just whenever he’d gotten it and had opted to let her father follow up on that one.

“Oh yeah.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dick.”

He looked back at her again. Despite her insult, he couldn’t help but smile. Despite everything they had gone through that night, she still looked… pretty. Her hair was somewhere between wavy and frizzy, and there were bags under her eyes. She had since gotten her dad’s jacket back, making her automatically look a little less cold. Even if she would have thought she was a sight for sore eyes, he thought she still looked good.

He knew he could get used to a sight like this. Kate sitting in the passenger’s seat as he drove, a hint of a smile on her face. Just like old times, really, but something about this was different. It was that same feeling he’d had yesterday morning with her in his kitchen. The same one that he’d had for a long time regarding her. There was just something about it, about her that made him think about the future.

As he drove, Steve thought about what Eddie had said to him last night. Eddie was right: Steve had to do something, anything to get her back. Everything he’d tried thus far hadn’t worked. Maybe telling her about what he saw in his future would get her back. 

“Have I ever told you about this dream I have?” he finally asked.

Kate gave him a questioning look. “What dream?”

“The one about what I see in my future?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so, no.”

“You know, it’s… it’s silly, but I–I’ve actually… I always had this dream that I’d have this, like… this really, really big family.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together as she stifled a laugh. While the comment seemingly came out of nowhere, she’d known that about Steve since they were probably in middle school, mostly because of how his parents were. Seen and not heard, as it had always been. Kate wasn’t sure that Steve’s parents had had a child for reasons other than to have him as an accessory whenever he’d been younger. That would explain why they’d only ever had the one kid that they’d stopped caring about whenever he could finally be left home alone. 

For a long time, Steve had always wished he’d had siblings. Someone that would truly understand what it was like to have parents like his, more specifically to have a dad like his. Even when he had gotten older, he wished he had at least one sibling, just because his house was so incredibly lonely whenever his parents weren’t home, which was most of the time. Just a younger sister he could shield from the world, or maybe a younger brother he could shoot hoops with outside (because in his mind, he would definitely be the oldest sibling). Because of all that, Kate had always known that Steve would want a bigger family whenever he got older. 

“I know.”

“No, I’m talking, like, uh… a full brood of Harringtons. It’s, like… five, six kids.”

“Six?” Kate asked, looking at him as if he was crazy. She hadn’t ever realized he wanted that many children. “Your poor wife.”

“What?” he asked, confused. “I mean, it’s just six little nuggets. Three girls, three boys.”

“Just? That’s six separate times someone has to push a child out of them. You know how much childbirth is, like, supposed to hurt, right?” Whenever he saw the slightly horrified look on his face, she shook her head. “Also, you know you can’t, like… control that, right? Whether it’s a girl or a boy? I mean, unless you adopt them, which would make this situation much easier for literally everyone involved—”

“Okay, all right, I get it,” he said, chuckling. “Just hear me out, okay? Every summer, no matter what the kids are, I figured all of us Harringtons, we would pack into something like this and… just see the country. You know, the Rockies, Grand Canyon, maybe Yellowstone.” He looked back at her again, almost smiling. “End up in some beachside town in California. Spend a week parked in the sand. Learn how to surf or something.”

“I mean, in a way, that… sounds nice, I guess,” Kate said, shrugging.

He looked back at her again, his heart swelling. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Kate grimaced when she thought about the rest of his dream. “Well, uh, except for the six kids part. That sounds like… a total nightmare for, like, multiple reasons.”

“If only I had practice,” Steve said sarcastically, motioning to the kids in the back.

Kate nodded reluctantly. “All right. Fair. That’s… fair.”

With that, she sighed. She couldn’t believe they were only having this conversation now. Robin had been right about their relationship last summer: even though they had nearly dated for a year, they hadn’t ever had a serious conversation like that. She hadn’t ever realized he wanted that many kids. She then wondered if Robin knew about this dream of his. Robin couldn’t have known about this. Kate would have known about it before now if he’d ever mentioned something like this to her. Besides, if Robin knew, she would have never let him live this down and would have teased him at every opportunity she could.

“What about you?” Steve finally asked. “You, uh… ever thought about it? What the future looks like?” 

She sighed. “I don’t know, I just… I guess I have never really thought about that.”

“I didn’t think so.”

She shook her head. “No, like… I never thought about, like, what my life would be like… later. Like, I kinda… I don’t know.”

Kate didn’t know how to say she hadn’t really thought about making it past twenty years old without sounding insanely depressed.

“You don’t know what?” Steve asked inquisitively.

“I don’t know, I just can’t really imagine myself having kids, you know? Being someone’s mom.” She hesitated. “It’s not like I’m totally against it or anything. I’m not, actually. I mean, it sounds nice, I guess. I just think my mom kinda… scared it out of me, or something. After everything she’s done. I obviously had great role models growing up when it came to parenting.”

Steve could only frown.

Kate’s mother, Diane, had left her and her father whenever she was eleven, about seven months or so after her biological sister Sara had died. Both events had almost killed her father, and Kate loathed her biological mother for doing such a thing to them. She’d gotten remarried to a boring man and had had another daughter while simultaneously forgetting about her firstborn. Kate had vowed to never speak to her mother again until last summer when her father had died. Simply out of respect, Kate had reached out to her mother to let her know that her father had died. Despite her protests, Diane had come to Hawkins to attempt to help her with the funeral. Kate had seen her three times that week: once alone, once with Steve, and once at the funeral. The first time that she’d seen her hadn’t been too terrible despite her mother twisting everything around like it had been Kate’s fault that she’d left in the first place. Even if it had pissed Kate off, she hadn’t had the energy to argue with her biological mother. Kate had only blown up on Diane the second she’d had the audacity to judge both Steve and her father whenever she’d met Steve and Kate for dinner one night. That had been something Kate hadn’t been able to tolerate, and that was proven by the less than ten words she’d shared with her mother at her father’s funeral and the radio silence she’d vowed to give her since then despite living in the same city as her.

It was safe to say that Kate didn’t like her biological mother very much.

Steve looked back at her fondly for only a moment before looking to the road again. “I–I think you’re really great with kids.”

“What?”

“I mean it.” He motioned to the kids behind him again absently. “Those guys back there? They… They love you. So much. All of those little shits think you’re the coolest person they’ve ever met.”

She shook her head. “I’m sure that’s not true. Not when you’re still around to help them.”

“I mean, maybe not the coolest, okay, but one of the coolest, for sure. Especially if you’re put up against me.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “I mean, you’re their hero, okay? Not only have you saved their asses multiple times, but you… you’re just so good to them. I still hear about that nerdy game book you got Dustin last Christmas. Max still has the cassettes you gave her, and I know that because I’ve seen your initials on all the cases.” He stopped himself, almost chuckling. “I mean, Jesus, that’s not even including El. You’ve practically raised her, Kathy, and you’re still doing it even though she’s on the complete other side of the country from you. These guys, they worship you, okay, and I don’t blame them. If someone did all that for me when I was a kid, I’d love them that much too. They all love you a lot more than you realize.”

Kate didn’t know what to say. The thought of the kids loving her nearly as much as they loved Steve hadn’t ever occurred to her. She knew El loved her, obviously, because she was her sister, and she had somewhat of an unconventional but close relationship with Max, but the other four boys? Dustin? She hadn’t ever thought that they cared her that much, but the thought did warm her heart.

Whenever he spoke again, she quickly looked back at him. “And fuck your mom, okay? You’re not… You’re not like her, okay? You’re not like her at all. I think you care about all those guys back there more than their actual parents sometimes, which is something she’d never do.” He paused again, almost hesitating. “I… I think you’d be a good mom, okay? Trust me. You’d… You’d be great.”

She pressed her lips together to form a smile. “You know, I think you’d be a great dad.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And Kate, for the first time in her life, thought about what her life might look like after she turned twenty.

next chapter

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[stranger-marauders]

shattered

twenty-six: the curse of vecna

chapter summary: While Kate is under Vecna's curse, Steve tries to find a way to snap her out of her trance.

chapter warnings: language, ptsd-like symptoms, canon-typical violence

word count: 4.1k

series masterlist | masterlist

KATE HAD STILL yet to break her eyes away from Henry receiving his tattoo from Dr. Brenner.

She didn’t know what to think. Kate felt completely overstimulated with everything she’d just learned: Henry Creel hadn’t died in 1959 like his mother and sister had. Henry Creel was actually a murderer and had actually been the one to kill his mother, sister, and those other three teenagers that had died within the past week. Henry Creel was alive, somehow, despite what his father had been told years ago. Henry, or One rather in this context, had been the first subject of Hawkins Lab and of Dr. Brenner’s, and had been the reason why all of the other subjects existed. Henry was the reason why all those other subjects besides El were now gone without a trace. Henry had killed them. Henry now wanted to kill El, almost like he was finishing the job of killing the rest of the subjects modeled after him. Henry had tried to use her years ago to get at her sister, and had tried to control Kate to kill her. Henry was Vecna but was also One. Unfortunately, everything made too much sense now that she had the full picture.

After learning so much in such a short period of time, her heartbeat seemed to pound in her head, making everything within her hurt. Kate needed to get out of her own head right now or else she wouldn’t be so lucky to escape it with all of the vital information Vecna had just provided her. She had to warn the others of what they were really facing. About what all of this had really been, after all. She needed to get out right now.

Brenner finally put down the tattoo needle in his hand and wiped at the numeric tattoo marked “001” now on the younger Henry’s left wrist.

“All done. Not so bad, was it? See? There’s nothing left to be afraid of.” Before speaking again, Brenner paused, almost in anticipation. “Is there, Katherine?”

She took a step back with the sound of her own name. As far as she knew, she hadn’t been able to interact with anyone in these visions thus far, nor had anyone seemed to notice her presence up until now. Kate didn’t think it was a good sign that Brenner had started to speak to her, especially if he was acknowledging her with something as unused as her legal name. When she realized how his eyes were now milky and pale-looking, glazed over in the same manner as the rest of Vecna’s victims always seemed to be, she felt frozen in place.

Kate was absolutely, positively fucked.

As Brenner spoke to her now, his voice began to sound distorted, almost like he was being used an extension of Vecna, or maybe he was a manipulation of his to scare her further. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

Without a second thought, Kate made a run for it down one of the halls of Hawkins Lab. She tried not to think about the numerous bloodied bodies that seemed to litter the hallway, the nurses and guards and children that had been murdered by Henry, but she couldn’t block out the screams. Their screams. As the lights flickered around her, surging as she ran away from the horrors and atrocities that Henry had committed, she only looked for a possible way out of this hellscape.

She knew it wasn’t the aftermath of the attack at Hawkins Lab that she was cursed with seeing now, not the night that she’d nearly been killed. Not the night that he’d let all those people die, where he’d let the Demodogs ravage all of those people and kill for sport. No, this had been the night that Henry, that Vecna had killed all of those people. All of the other numbers, the children that had been alive prior to Henry’s massacring of them. Not just them, but all of the people that had worked at the lab. Anyone and everything that got in his way had been a victim that night except for Eleven, somehow, and she couldn’t, she wouldn’t stand around to wait for that to happen to her too.

She had to get out of here right now if they had any chance in hell of defeating him for good.

Steve had no idea how long he’d been shaking Kate for.

“Kathy, just stay with me!” he shouted, still holding her head in his hands as he shook her violently.

That was what he’d been doing since he’d realized that she’d fallen into her trance. He hadn’t stopped shaking her, calling her name, begging for her to come back to him. All of it, however, had seemed to be of no use. There hadn’t been any type of response from her, any proof of alertness or awareness in her being. It was just like how Max had been in the graveyard all over again, except this time it was much, much worse because he knew there wasn’t a single cassette tape around to save her with.

Kate was about to become the next victim of Vecna and Steve had no idea how he hadn’t picked up on such a thing. Even if his mind raced with trying to find events within the past twenty-four hours that could have led to this, signs that Kate was the next addition to Vecna’s chain of untimely victims, he knew he couldn’t think of that right now. They didn’t have time for that. She didn’t have time for that. He had to focus on breaking her out of her trance, on lifting this curse of Vecna that had somehow been bestowed on her. Otherwise, Kate might not be as lucky as Max to survive. 

Steve didn’t care what he had to do to get her back. He couldn’t lose her. She wasn’t allowed to die. Not right now. Not like this. Everything in his entire being ached knowing that Kate might die just because they didn’t have a cassette tape with one of her favorite songs on it with them right now. Because he hadn’t thought to have one ready to go just in case something happened just like this. He wasn’t going to sit here and watch her levitate into the air, watch all of her limbs snap in half, watch her eyes get sucked back into her skull just because he hadn’t prepared better for something like this to happen to her. He should have known that this could happen, that it would happen to her especially after that particularly nasty episode of hers last night. He should have fucking known better and he was a dumbass for even thinking that she would be safe. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He couldn’t dread on any of that now. He had to focus. He wasn’t going to hold what was left of her in his arms as he felt the last bit of air leave her lungs, the last bit of life she had leave her body after she’d finally fallen back down to the ground again. He refused to let Kate die, especially if it was going to be like this. He wouldn’t break his promise to her father after he’d done so much to keep it. He had to save her. He had to. Otherwise, Hopper would come back to life just to murder him for letting his daughter die under his own watch, especially if it was like this. Especially if it could have been so easily avoided if he wouldn’t have been so stupid.

He tried not to think about any of that as he tried to shake her back to consciousness. About what would happen if she actually did die right now. He would have to tell Joyce that he hadn’t been able to save her. To tell El that it had been his fault that the last living member of her family had died. That he’d done everything he could to save her sister, but it hadn’t been enough. That he hadn’t properly prepared for something like this to happen and that it was all his fault that she was gone. His recurring nightmare where he hadn’t been able to save her and instead had to bury her would quickly become a reality if she didn’t wake up soon. Before any of that, though, he would have to carry her dead body out of the Upside Down and somewhere other than this goddamned trailer so she could be put to rest the right way. As all of it ran through the back of his mind, he wasn’t quite sure he’d be able to survive any of that if she didn’t wake up.

“Please, Kathy, just stay with me!”

He’d almost ripped his voice raw from screaming so loudly for her to snap out of her trance. Even if his throat hurt, he couldn’t give up now. With each plea, he became increasingly more desperate for her to wake up. Part of him knew it wasn’t of any use. That everything that he was currently doing didn’t matter because he didn’t have that goddamn cassette tape. None of it had mattered for Max, so why would it be any different for Kate?

Despite his irritation, his neverending frustration with the situation, he knew he couldn’t stop now. He needed to see her eyes again. Her eyes that were so bright and lively, not the milky and pale blue ones he was currently looking into.

“Stay with me, okay?” he said shakily. He begged with her almost as if she could actually hear him. Steve looked back up through the gate to find Erica still standing underneath it. “Whatever you guys are doing up there, hurry up!”

Erica, somewhat panickedly, ran down the hallway and into Eddie’s bedroom where everyone else had started searching Eddie’s collection of cassette tapes for songs that Kate might like. The only reason she had gone so fast was because she didn’t want to risk Steve screaming at her like that again.

Even after the incident with the Russians, she had never seen him in a fraction of the state he was currently, but part of her couldn’t blame him for the way he was acting now. The Russians had been a completely different situation. While they had all been in danger, it wasn’t like there was a direct threat to Kate’s life. If anything, Steve’s life had been in the most danger after the Russians had beat him the way they had. Even so, there hadn’t been a supernatural threat to their lives until they had escaped the bunker that night. That was why this was so different. Now that Kate was under Vecna’s curse, there was a strong chance she wouldn’t ever come out of it, that she would die before they could save her, and she couldn’t blame Steve for panicking like he was. She didn’t want Kate to die, either.

“Steve says you need to hurry!” Erica shouted whenever she was within earshot of the rest of the group. 

“Yeah? No shit!” Dustin shouted as he shuffled through some of Eddie’s cassette tapes in his bedroom.

“We’re trying,” Max said, a sense of urgency in her voice. “We can’t find anything!”

“Seriously, what is all this shit!” Robin shouted at Eddie as she threw cassettes at him angrily.

“I don’t know, what are you even looking for?” Eddie shouted in return.

“Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles?” Robin said, trying to think of anything and everything Kate liked.

As of right now, getting one of Kate’s favorite songs to play through her ears wasn’t even that important to her. Kate just needed to get something she liked decently enough and hope that it would get her out of her own mind, anything that she remotely enjoyed just to give her a chance at escaping a particularly painful death while they searched for something a bit more on brand for her. Kate wasn’t even that picky in terms of music, so it shouldn’t have been this difficult to just find a single song for her to listen to. For some reason, though, she hadn’t thought that Kate would enjoy anything that Eddie currently had to offer considering his current library seemed to only consist of Iron Maiden and Dio.

“Music! We need music!” Robin shouted at him, still holding one of his cassette tapes.

Eddie snatched the Iron Maiden cassette out of Robin’s hands bitterly, holding it up to her in disgust. “This is music!”

Whenever Kate finally found what might have been a potential exit out of the lab, she didn’t care that it was boarded up by planks of plywood, similarly to how the windows and doors had been boarded up at the Creel house whenever they’d gone the day before. She tried breaking the barrier in, pulling and kicking at the pieces of wooden board she could reach most easily. If she was stuck in her mind, she should have been able to do whatever she wanted to get out of it.

“Goddammit!”

She finally got the first piece of wood off, throwing it on the ground behind her. As she pulled, she tried to ignore the sharp pain that had suddenly flared up her hands, seemingly because of the wood that had started to splinter off into her palms. She had to ignore it—now wasn’t the time to give up just because of a damn imaginary splinter.

This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real—

She tried to ignore Vecna’s words. About how telling herself that it wasn’t real didn’t matter anymore. It did matter, because none of this was real. Just like it normally was, all of this was just in her head. She had to ignore that, ignore him because he was just trying to get at her again. The more scared she was, the more power he had over her. She had to remind herself that none of this was real and that she was actually safe so long as she found a way out of her own mind. She had to figure out another way out of this that wasn’t her dying or her magically listening to Fleetwood Mac.

How she’d had to think about this was she was just experiencing an episode on steroids. Nightmare on Elm Street rules: no dying or else you’d actually kick the bucket. Really, that was all this was now that she knew Henry was behind her episodes to begin with. A cracked out episode. Somehow with the added context Henry had provided, her standard episodes were much less horrifying. She figured they’d remain to be that way if she ever had the unfortunate experience of having one again. Now she knew her episodes were simply a remnant of what he’d failed to do: control her. Kill her. She couldn’t let him win now.

As she pulled another piece of plywood from the doorway, she heard someone call her name just from the other end of the hallway.

“Katherine.”

She stopped tugging on the piece of wood that her hands were currently wrapped around, her eyes widening in horror whenever she saw him. 

Vecna had found her.

He looked exactly as he had whenever she’d seen him last with his gray skin and viney physique. Somehow, though, seeing him for what felt like the first time all over again made her heart sink in her chest as it pounded heavily. This time, for some reason, looking at him felt more like reality than it had the last time she had seen him. Just like before, he appeared as if he had been perfectly assembled into the Upside Down, nothing remaining of his human form except for his now pale blue eyes. Kate thought that somehow that must have been the most horrifying part about him.

What made everything far, far worse was that she knew the thing she was currently looking at was once a man.

“What are you doing?” he asked, taking slow, heavy steps toward her. Whenever he spoke, his voice was distorted and deep, unnatural and inhuman. “It’s not time for you to leave.”

She gasped, then turned back to focus on the piece of wood that she’d still yet to tear off the door. She moved down to the next piece of wood, trying to peel it off the door as quickly as possible. She couldn’t die in here. She wouldn’t.

“Now that you’ve seen where I’ve been,” Vecna said as he got closer to her, “I would like very much to show you where I am going.”

Kate pulled the last piece of wood off of the door that was in her way and threw it back behind her in an attempt to slow him down. She broke through the entrance to hopefully lead her to a hallway so she could try to find an exit of some kind. When she looked around the new room she had entered, however, one that appeared to be another testing room within the lab, her stomach leapt to her throat whenever she saw Brenner again, his eyes still looking as if he were possessed by Vecna with their pale and milky shade.

“Take a seat, Katherine.”

The lights surged again, shutting off entirely for a few seconds before Kate found herself tied down to a chair in the room, her only restraints being the very vines that covered the Upside Down. She tried to break free from their grasp as they coiled tightly around her arms and legs, but she couldn’t. The more she tried to fight them off, the tighter they writhed around her body, making her even more uncomfortable and sick-feeling than she already was. The vines felt wet against her skin, and they grew tighter around her as time went on. She could have sworn they were alive. Everything felt so horribly real that part of her thought for a moment that this couldn’t have been happening inside of her head. Kate, however, knew better than that.

This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real.

Vecna now stood in the corner of the room, breathing heavily as he took menacing steps in her direction. As he inched closer to her, Kate thought she was going to be sick. This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real. Whenever he finally stood above her, Kate’s heart started beating out of her chest, even more so than when she was having a regular episode. This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real. For a moment, she thought that her having a heart attack would be enough to pull her out of Vecna’s grasp. She didn’t have to worry about Vecna killing her if her heart gave out first.

“I… want you to tell Eleven,” he started, moving his hand closer to her face. “I want you to tell her everything you see.”

Kate could only watch as his long-fingered hand hung over her face as she tried to steady herself. Before she could even try to prepare herself to have her limbs snapped out of place and eyes sucked back into her skull, an image danced across her mind. Dozens of them. Her eyes remained open as her visions flashed across her mind at a hundred miles an hour. She almost couldn’t register the images because of their rapid speed, but she focused just enough to get the main idea of Vecna’s message.

At first, she saw the Creel house engulfed by what she could only assume was a massive gate that had somehow formed from within the house itself. The gate, however, split the house down the middle and grew past the property. That one, however, wasn’t the only gate that began to grow past its typical size. Another gate grew from within Eddie’s trailer. From Lover’s Lake. Even the gate on the road that Fred had died on had started to spread fast, spread violently. Everything was glowing a bright red as it grew bigger and bigger, a red so bright it burned her eyes. The chime of a clock.

“No!”

All of the gates from the murder sites seemed to grow, spreading like a virus instead of closing like they normally did shortly after they’d initially been opened. Instead, they were spreading, growing, killing with a sense of purpose, almost like those tunnels beneath Hawkins had done years ago during their initial spread. These gates sought to do what those tunnels couldn’t at the time. The chime of a clock.

“Tell her…”

All four gates continued to grow and spread until they finally met each other at the center of downtown Hawkins, wreaking mass havoc upon the entire town as it seemingly folded in on itself. As the massive gate burned a bright and exquisite red, it seemed as if it sought to destroy everything in its path. Buildings around it collapsed, homes were destroyed, and dozens upon dozens of people were hurt and died, a complete massacre taking place within the town they had all done such a good job of protecting until now. The chime of a clock.

“…everything.”

The chime of a clock. She could only watch as the people of the town of Hawkins suffered, as they endured the agony of the massacre none of them had been able to stop. Of what she hadn’t been able to stop. Kate had been left completely useless to watch as everyone she had ever loved died trying to stop the monsters that emerged from the gaping hole from causing anymore mayhem: El, Steve, Robin, Joyce, the kids, Nancy and Jonathan, Eddie. Everyone she’d ever loved was going to die, and Kate would be there to watch every last one of them take their final breaths.

“No!”

Without any warning, Kate swiftly fell out of her trance, causing her to gasp as she collapsed.

“Hey, woah, woah, woah, woah,” Steve said, catching her fall as she dropped to the floor. Even if he couldn’t do much to stop her from falling, he gently paced her on the ground, dropping down with her as she hyperventilated, almost sounding as if she was about to sob.

Kate could hardly register where she was or what she was doing after everything she’d just been subjected to. Her head pounded so hard that she could barely see, dark spots now dancing across her vision. Her ears still rang so loudly that she could hardly keep her eyes open, and she could barely hear. She could only imagine all of that was because of Vecna infiltrating her mind like he had again. For a second she tried to fight Steve, almost like she thought he had been trying to kill her too, but she quickly gave up her struggle whenever she finally saw his face and registered him in front of her and realized it was actually him, not some fucked up nightmare version she had to watch die again. As he spoke to her now, he tried his best to try and calm her down and tell her that she really was okay. The tears in her eyes started to swell over with the sound of his voice. Somehow, she’d made it. She’d made it out of there alive.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here,” Steve said, nearly panting as he gazed upon her.

Holy shit. He tried to catch his breath as he looked over her. He wanted to make sure she was at least physically okay, because mentally was a long shot. He brushed over her arms and her hands, making sure that nothing felt broken there. He glanced down at her legs, which also didn’t appear to be broken, but her falling like that stressed him out. He could only hope that her legs had only given out like that because of pure exhaustion and not any Vecna-related issue. Whenever he met her eyes again, the typical blue shade and not the pale blue that they’d taken during her trance, he was almost able to breath again as his eyes swelled with tears.

“I’m right here.”

Kate, even if she was absolutely horrified at what she’d just seen, thought that just for a moment that she was more than lucky to have survived, and she wasn’t quite sure that she had ever been happier to do such a thing.

next chapter

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[sunshinereaderx]

Dear Dollie | Part thirty three

Okay so I decided to do this one from Gators POV it just made sense and instead of half picking up / half time jump I decided to just separate them so the next part WILL be a time jump ☺️

Mentions of blood, Mentions of losing people, Offers hardly any answers to your questions BUT as I said, I think its nice to see Gator suffering for once.

Previous

Next

GATORS POV

"Out of the way, Sir" One of the paramedics spoke as an arm pressed across gators chest to slowly push him away from you, Eyes flickering between you and his lifeless son resting on the bed.

Gators eyes moved back to you, slowly moving down your body to the considerable sized pool of blood building against the sheets between your legs.

"No.." Gator spoke barely above a whisper, Fuck not you too. You cant leave him like everyone else had "Fuck, She's fuckin bleedin!" Gator shouted as the paramedic who was already working on you looked over his shoulder at Gator.

Gator dropped to his knees on the floor next to you, Hand stroking the hair off your face as his eyes searched yours. Urging you to just stay, Don't leave him to do this alone.

"Cmon mama, he's here. He's finally here" He forced a smile to his face, and you looked at him. Your big eyes weren't filled with fear like he expected them to be, They were kind of glazed over he knew you weren't really listening to him. The soft smile on your face turned his stomach, What the fuck were you happy about? His life was falling apart in front of him. "H-hes perfect" Gator tried, Noticing the light slowly leaving your eyes.

"Sir you need to back up" The paramedic spoke again as he stood up once again moving Gator out of the way.

Gators hand rested against his mouth, Watching as your eyes slowly closed. Quickly turning his attention back to his son who had more people stood around him than Gator expected, Startling him a little as he tried to find a spot he could see through them to check on him.

"He okay?" Gator asked as tears rolled down his cheeks, He wanted to stay next to you and hold your hand, Be there when you finally came back around but his son needed him right now too. "Said is he fuckin okay?" He shouted, Totally ignored by them all as they got him ready to leave.

"Can I just see him?" Gator asked hand grabbing at one of the paramedics shoulders, Once again he was nudged out of the way. He watched as you were both carried away, Heart racing in his chest as he grabbed the hospital bags you'd packed together. Mind filling with the memories of you both bickering over which onesie would be best, Gator picking a navy blue one with little deers all over it and you picking a plain white one just incase he came out a girl. You throwing the white one into the bag and Gator sneaking his choice inside when you weren't looking, Dollie kissing the teddy that Gator took her out to get so she could give him a present when he arrived. Your face when you talked about having a baby shower, Something he never got round to planning with you. Guilt eating away at him of all of the things you wanted to do this pregnancy that he let slip past him, Thinking they weren't important. Hitting him like a train that they were important, They were memories now lost.

Gator let the bags drop from his hands as he walked towards your dresser, The framed photo of the three of you that day that Dollie and him set up the little photoshoot. He picked it up dragging his finger slowly across the glass, Sob falling from him as he placed it back down. Everything was perfect that day, You and Gator still weren't together but it felt good. He'd do anything to go back to that day, The four of you all safe and well. Loved.

He took in your apartment one last time, The chaos you'd both left behind before picking up the bags and following behind.

~

"Where are they?" Gator shouted as he ran into the reception of the hospital, Eyes frantic as he searched for anyone who could help him. His chest was heaving, Sweat pooling on his forehead, Hands shaking as he approached the desk looking down at the concerned woman with his wild eyes. "My- my girl and my baby..They.. FUCK" He slammed his hands down onto the desk before turning away placing his hand against his mouth as he tried to pull himself back together.

"Sir?" The woman called with a soft voice, Gator turned slowly to face her noticing the sympathetic look she carried "Would you like to give me some more information so I can help you?"

"M-my girlfriend, she had the baby at home. They're in a bad way I don't know what else to tell you" He almost sobbed as he looked around the room for any signs of you both.

"okay, okay" She tried to calm him, Typing something into her computer "Tell me her name"

So he did, The seconds it took her to find where you both were felt like days passing to Gator. Heart feeling like the moment they took you both away it disappeared.

"They're here, got here a few minutes before you. I can take you to the waiting room" She smiled softly, pushing her chair away from the desk as Gator followed behind her. " Is he dead?"

The woman shot him a sympathetic look that made his stomach turn and the lump in his throat feel impossible to swallow, His eyes searching hers as they stood at the door of the waiting room.

"I don't have that information sir, But if you wait in here I'll let the doctors know you've arrived"

Gator walked into the cold room, A sofa sat pressed up against the wall that looked like it had been there a hundred years. He wondered how many other people had sat on it in the same situation as him, How many people got told the news that there child and partner had died just as things were getting better.

Would he be the next to be told that? He couldn't shake the sight of you on the bed, He'd never seen so much blood coming from one person. The reassuring smile on your lips as you closed your eyes burned into him forever. Fuck, Why didnt he take more care of you? What if he never got the chance to tell you how much he loved you again? Why didnt he fight more when you said you wanted to stay at home? No, that wasn't your home. Your home was with him he told himself before trying to shake the unhelpful thoughts away.

His mind moved straight onto his son, The son he'd spent months dreading the arrival of incase he couldn't be a good dad to him. The son he'd promised to himself that he would be better than his dad, Head filled with plans of things he wanted to do with him, Things he wanted to show him. The way he had the same little nose that Dollie did when she was born, His long eyelashes that never moved not once as he lay lifeless in his hands. Would he ever get to see what he looked like with his eyes open? Would he ever get to smell that addicting newborn smell that he'd grown to love when Dollie was born, sad when it disappeared. Gators head was spinning, He didnt realise that he was breathing so heavily as he paced around the room, Hands shaking as he tried to steady himself feeling light headed. What if you never got to see your son? Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!

Dollie, His baby girl. His pride and joy who longed for a sibling you'd both finally gave her, He remembered the day you both told her. The joy on her little face letting him know that he'd done the right thing, He always knew he'd done the right thing bringing you into her life. You'd made her life better, You'd made his life better too. How would he explain to Dollie that her mama was never coming home? How would he explain that the baby brother shed had spent so long waiting for wasn't happening anymore. How do you explain death to a six year old? The only way she'd ever know about him would be through things that Gator told her, Like a story he'd tell her at bedtime. Someone that only existed in fairytales now.

Gators chest was heaving, Sweat forming against his eyebrows as he paced around the room. The vibrating of his phone in his pocket pulling him from the thoughts.

"Gator? Where are you?" Tara spoke down the phone, Gators breath caught in his throat as he listened to Dollie giggling with baby Tommy in the back ground "We had her over night which I don't mind but you said it would be a few hours is everything okay?"

Gator bit down on his lip to try and muffle the sob that was begging to come out, Wanting to break down and tell her everything because he knew she'd listen and right now he was alone in this.

"C-can I speak ta doll?" He asked exhaling as tears clouded his vision once again "Please"

"Dollie, Daddy's on the phone" Tara called out to her "Gator? Just..Is she okay?"

Gator didnt answer, He couldn't. Not just because he knew he couldn't really tell her anything but because once he started he wouldn't be able to stop.

"Daddy?" Dollies sweet little voice called through the phone "Daddy we forgot to bring bunny with us, ive been missing him and I miss you" Dollie chattered away, A slight smile forming against gators lips as she soothed him without even knowing.

"M'sorry baby"

"It's okay daddy, Can I speak to mama too?" The question was so innocent but carried so much heaviness with it, She didnt know of course she would want to talk to you.

"Bit busy at moment Dollie girl" Gator bit down on his lip trying to muffle the sob that he couldn't hold onto anymore.

"Hmm okay" Dollie sighed "I miss mama and the baby too"

"Y-yeah, They miss you too.. Daddy's gotta go" Gator pulled the phone away from his ear for a second, head thrown back as he tried to breathe through it "I love ya baby girl" Gator whispered into the phone before hanging up.

TARA: What's going on?

He needed to tell her, He knew he did but he just hoped she didnt start freaking out.

🐊: Babies here, Both bad way. Don't freak out.

TARA: Bad way? Im coming up

Gator sighed as he pushed his phone back into his pocket, He didnt want her here but what did he expect? She was the most important person in your life.

The door to the room creaked open, eyes filled with tears as he turned to look at the doctor in the doorway. The blood still on his scrubs as he looked at him, Blank expression leaving Gator thinking the worst.

"We have your son in the NICU, We had to perform resuscitation on him" Gators heart if he had anything left of it was broken, Fear pulsing through his body as he waited for the doctor to continue "But we managed to get a pulse before we arrived at the hospital"

Gator let out a choked sob as he fell to his knees, He didnt really believe in god since breaking away from his dad but if there was one you best believe he's fucking thanking him right now.

"Fuck" He sobbed, never feeling so grateful for something in his life "My girl? Is she?.."

"She's lost a lot of blood, She's still bleeding but she's in the best hands" He sighed, Gators stomach turned as a feeling of nausea washed over him. But he had to be strong now, He promised himself once he had Dollie he never wanted to bring another child Into the world without having two parents but this was out of his control "We're doing everything we can" He spoke softly, like he knew the outcome already but didnt want to say it.

"She gonna die?" Gator asked abruptly, Not sure why he asked because he didnt want to know the answer. Right now he could just believe you were going to get better, Eventually he'd be able to bring your son to you, Show you what you'd grown finally.

"Like I said, Were doing everything we can" The doctor smiled softly at Gator who wasn't feeling anymore relived. Maybe it's what he deserved after everything he'd done, All the mess he'd bought to you. Maybe he was finally being punished for all of the lives he'd took away, Maybe it was his turn to lose someone he loved.

"Can I see my son?" Gator asked, Voice weak as he spoke not really hearing his response as everything raced through his mind but he guessed it was a no as he watched him walk through the door taking whatever was left of his heart with him.

He sat down against the sofa, letting his head fall back against the fabric. Everything feeling numb, If he slipped away with you guys now he don't think he'd care as he slowly started to drift off.

"Daddy?" Dollie called as she sheepishly stepped towards him, Gators heart basically flipped as he opened his eyes to look at her. Of course he'd care, His whole world was stood right in front of him, Except his whole world extended to the both of you too now.

Gator sobbed as he pulled her into his lap, Tara sat down on the sofa next to him wrapping her arms around them both.

"Hes okay" Gator managed to get out between peppering kisses across the top of dollies head "But she aint"

Taras eyes widened as she looked at his tear stained cheeks, The way his bottom lip was dry and sore like he'd been biting it. The sheer panic in his eyes as he looked at her, silently begging her to tell him it was all going to be okay.

Dollies eyes were locked on Gators, Little hands pressed to either side of his face as she stroked her thumbs against the stray tears.

"Is mama gonna be okay daddy?"

Gator let his head rest against dollies forehead softly, Wanting to tell her that yes, You were going to be okay. But truly he didnt know.

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[26wh57]

[stranger-marauders]

shattered

twenty-two: the dive

chapter summary: When the group encounters Lover's Lake, Steve takes one for the team to investigate beneath the surface.

chapter warnings: language, canon-typical violence, grief if you squint, scar mentions

word count: 4.4k

series masterlist | masterlist

AS DUSK BEGAN to settle over Hawkins, the group of eight picked up their pace to try to find the supposed gate.

Kate didn’t know how to feel about their hunt in the first place. Part of her thought they were on a wild goose chase, or maybe she had just been hoping that. She had no desire to go through a gate, particularly now that none of them had any weapons on them, as Steve had requested her father’s revolver stay locked in her glove box for the rest of the week. None of them had anything to defend themselves with, and she didn’t like the idea of them going to the Upside Down empty-handed.

Because of that, Kate felt like she was going insane. Was she the only person that remembered what the creatures from the Upside Down had done to people in the past? Had done to her? The more they walked in the direction of the gate, the more anxious she became. She definitely did not want to go to another dimension. Not today, and not without a weapon of some kind.

“Hey, you okay?” Steve asked as he touched her shoulder.

The sensation of his fingers grazing her skin made her jump, but she immediately relaxed whenever she met his worried eyes. “Y–Yeah, I’m fine. Peachy.”

He frowned. “Kathy, if you wanna call this off, just say the word and it’s over, okay? You and I, we… we can go back and find another way to help.”

“What? No, that’s not—” She cut herself off, sighing as she lowered her voice. “I just… I can’t be the only one that thinks this is a bad idea.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure I said it was a bad idea about a hundred times, but Henderson ignored me.” He sighed. “He just doesn’t listen to me anymore.”

“Oh yeah?” Kate asked as she tried to find a way to change the subject. “You were right about him having a new friend. It’s kinda cute.”

“No, it’s annoying,” Steve said, rolling his eyes at just the mention of Eddie. “I’ll never understand his obsession with him.”

“I mean, he’s not so bad. He’s nice.” Kate hesitated to go on. “I just wish he didn’t call me Hopper.”

Steve gave her a confused look. “What?”

She shrugged, giving him an odd expression. “I don’t know, it just… sounds weird. Everyone called my dad that, you know, so it’s just… I don’t know. It’s stupid. I don’t feel like I’ve earned it, you know?”

“Hey, it’s not stupid. I get it.” He paused. “Just so you know, you’ve definitely earned it. You’re… You’re a real badass, okay? Everyone thinks so but you.”

“Thanks.” She pressed her lips together, trying not to lose the smile that dusted her lips. “About Eddie, though, he’s cool. I mean, he’s not cool, but that’s what makes him cool. He’s proud of it.”

“Oh, so, what, you like Munson now, too?” Steve asked exasperatedly.

Kate hummed in amusement. “Yeah, I guess so. He’s just… He’s got really nice hair, you know? And those big baby cow eyes? I just get lost in them. And he’s—”

“All right, stop it, I know what you’re doing,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Very funny, okay? You’re hilarious. Now stop it.”

“It’s not a joke, Steve. I think I might be in love with him. I kinda want to be serenaded by him, you know, because he plays guitar—”

“Oh my God, please tell me you’re joking—”

She giggled at his concern. “I’m just kidding. You make it so easy to fuck with you.”

Steve pursed his lips, a pink hue just barely dusting his cheeks. Her and her damn teasing.

“But, really, in all seriousness, he’s a cool guy. I think it’s sweet he’s good to the kids.”

“I don’t get why you like him so much,” Steve said, somewhat bitterly. “He feeds into Henderson’s shit, just like he is right now. He doesn’t get it, what we’ve gone through, okay? What you’ve gone through—”

“Steve, it’s okay,” she said softly, almost like she was trying to calm his nerves. “Seriously. I’ve moved past a lot of that now.”

“But it’s not okay, all right? Stop acting like… like this is the way things are supposed to be, because they’re not.” He paused, trying to collect himself before he said something stupid. “Okay?”

Her eyebrows furrowed together. “How are things supposed to be, then?”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. Realistically, he didn’t know if the way things were supposed to be and way he wanted things to be were different, but in his mind, they were the exact same thing. After the time he’d spent with her the past few days, he knew that he had to have more with her. How are things supposed to be, she’d asked. He could almost laugh. Things weren’t supposed to be like this, he knew that much. In his mind, things being right would have been him and Kate still together, even if he hadn’t done anything to deserve her in the first place. Things being right would have been him living in New York City with her despite not being in college with her. Things being right would have been the world not ending once again before a year had passed since the last time they’d saved the world, but he couldn’t have those things. He couldn’t have any of them. God, he wished that was how things could be for them. He wanted more than anything for that dream of his to become reality, but he wasn’t that lucky. Instead, this was all he had.

“How are things supposed to be, Steve?”

Steve contemplated his options. He could keep all of those thoughts to himself, just like he had all week. For weeks. Months, really, because he’d thought those things since the night they’d broken up. He didn’t want to push her away again with his thoughts, but right now, he didn’t care. What if they got sidetracked the second they got to the gate? What if she got hurt again? What if neither of them got as lucky as they had in the past? The thoughts in his head started running at a thousand miles an hour, nearly killing him with how many chances there were for everything to go wrong once they found the gate. He couldn’t lose her again. Not for real this time. He wouldn’t let that happen.

As he looked into her eyes now, the remnants of twilight barely brushing her features as the sun dipped below the horizon, he sighed. He knew what he had to do now. “I, uh… I know things have been… less than normal between us. You know, recently.”

Her confusion didn’t melt as he spoke.

“And I’ve liked getting to see you again. A lot, actually, and it’s made me think about things.”

“Think about things?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Being with you again, it’s made me think a lot about what I want, and… and I don’t know, I just… I just know I still—”

“Dustin? Can you slow down? Dustin!” Eddie called from just ahead of them, somewhat distressed.

Kate and Steve exchanged glances for only a second before running ahead through the woods as Steve shined a flashlight to illuminate their path. By the time they caught up with them, Max and Lucas in front of them and Robin and Nancy behind, Dustin and Eddie discovered the shoreline of a lake.

“Watch your step, big guy,” Eddie said, pulling Dustin back from falling into the water. “Oh man,” Steve said, almost out of breath as he stared over the lake. “You gotta be shitting me.”

“Yeah. I thought these woods were familiar.”

“Lover’s Lake,” Robin said. 

“This is… confounding,” Dustin said, almost in awe.

“There’s a gate in Lover’s Lake?” Max asked.

“Hey, Nance?” Kate asked, looking in her direction questioningly. “Didn’t the, uh… Don’t you remember when we went hunting with Jonathan? That night, you know, whenever you disappeared for a sec?”

“When I went through that hole in the tree?” Nancy asked, not following completely.

“Yeah,” Kate started, nodding once. “Yeah, that. The Demogorgon, it killed that deer and left a snack-sized gate there, too. I mean, every time it attacked, it always left an opening.” She paused, only watching the still and quiet lake in front of her. “Maybe Vecna’s the same way, too.”

“Yeah, only one way to find out,” Steve replied.

Eddie took them over to the small boat from Reefer Rick’s boathouse that he’d taken to the shoreline. After explaining to them that the motor was dead and they would have to row with the oars, Eddie and Steve worked on getting it back into the water to explore the lake more closely.

“Easy. I… I said easy, man,” Steve said after Eddie slammed it down into the edge of the lake, splashing water onto him.

“Sorry, dude.”

“Here you go,” Steve said, holding his hand out to Robin as she stepped into the boat.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna do that,” Robin said, entering the boat by holding both Steve’s and Eddie’s heads to enter. “Thank you.” “Yeah, that works too.”

Eddie stepped into the boat after her, then he offered his hand to Nancy to help her in. “Wheeler.”

Kate started to step into the boat, but hesitated and looked down at her dad’s jacket that she was wearing. It was a corduroy jacket—she wasn’t going to let it potentially get ruined and let it get wet. Without a second thought, she turned around to Max, took off her jacket and held it out to her. “Here, hold onto this for me, will you?”

Max took it in her hands awkwardly, her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “Won’t you freeze to death?”

“I’m not letting my dad’s curdoroy jacket get wet.”

She shrugged as she folded it and hung it under her arm, almost as if to say “fair.” If that was Billy’s jacket, she wouldn’t want it to get messed up, either.

Steve tried to help Kate into the boat, but Eddie already stuck his hand out to her. “Good, you got her.”

“Hopper.”

She nodded once, standing next to where Nancy stood and Robin sat.

When Dustin tried to step into the boat, Eddie blocked him from even attempting. “Hey, hey, hey, you trying to sink us? This thing holds four people tops, okay?”

“It’s better this way, okay?” Nancy said to Dustin after she saw the hurt look on his face. “You guys stay here with Max. Keep an eye out for trouble.”

“You keep an eye out,” Dustin said to her, earning a pointed look from everyone in the boat. “It’s my goddamn theory.”

“You heard Nance,” Robin said.

“Who put her in charge?”

“I did,” Robin replied without a second thought.

“I second that motion,” Kate said, sticking her hand out to Dustin. “Compass. Now.”

Dustin pouted as he pulled the compass from his pocket, bitterly handing it to her. 

Steve quickly stood up, throwing the backpack that he’d been holding to Dustin. “Hey, there you go.”

After Dustin bitterly said “Ow,” Steve pushed the boat off of the shoreline, stepping in and taking his seat next to Kate.

“You said four!” Dustin shouted at the older kids in the boat as it moved deeper into the lake.

Steve turned back to look at him sheepishly, whispering whenever he spoke. “Sorry.”

“Bedtime’s at nine, kiddos!” Robin shouted. Whenever Dustin shot them the bird, Kate shook her head and laughed as Robin stood up in the boat. “Miss you already!”

Nancy chuckled before looking at Kate. “You got the compass?”

“Yeah, I got it. Stay on the lookout for Demogorgons, okay? Or, like, whatever the Upside Down equivalent of Nessie is.”

Whenever everyone in the boat laughed nervously, Kate looked back down at the compass in her hands. Once Robin and Eddie picked up their oars, it fell quiet as they started to row out to the center of the lake, anxious to find this supposed gate. Kate kept a careful eye on the compass, almost like it was the only thing in the world.

Steve, however, tried his best not to focus on her. He tried his best to follow her instructions and keep an eye out for anything interdimensional in the lake’s depths, but he wasn’t able to focus on identifying anything past the surface of the lake. He felt so out of place. Steve had almost gotten the chance to tell her he was still in love with her and, of course, it had been taken away from him. Now he was squished next to her on a boat at Lover’s Lake, which only made his head hurt. His heart was nearly thumping out of his chest at just the press of her thigh up against his, the sensation of her fingertips barely grazing the back of his hand by accident whenever she moved hers. It all made him faint just thinking about it.

“Woah. Woah, woah, woah, slow down. Slow down, guys,” Kate said, trying to quickly grab everyone’s attention in the boat. Steve held his flashlight over her shoulder, trying to illuminate the compass as its needle spun around madly. She moved forward so Nancy, Robin, and Eddie could also see it.

“Woah.”

“Guys, what’s going on?” Dustin asked over the walkie. “Come on, guys, talk to me. What’s going on?”

Robin picked up the walkie that they had in the boat. “Uh, Dustin, your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital ‘aah!’”

When one of Steve’s shoes dropped to the bottom of the boat, Kate turned to look at him as he took his sock off, too. “Steven, what are you doing?” “Somebody’s gotta go down there and check this thing out,” he said, starting to take his other shoe off his foot. “Unless one of you four can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years, then…” He sighed once he’d gotten his other sock off, looking up at Kate. “It’s gotta be me. No complaints, all right?”

When he stood up, everyone watched him as he stood toward the edge of the boat.

“Hey, I’m not complaining. I do not wanna go down there.” Eddie took one of the remaining plastic bags from his groceries out of his pocket. 

Despite his request for no complaints, Kate opened her mouth to protest the idea, but she immediately stopped herself whenever she watched him take off his sweatshirt, looking at his bare back. She knew she had to stop staring, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Much to her surprise, he still looked good even though he had the excuse to stop working out now that he wasn’t playing any sports. If anything, she thought he might look better now than he ever had.

Robin, of course, only smiled as she watched Kate seemingly lost her mind internally. Called it.

Eddie wrapped the flashlight inside of the grocery bag that remained in the boat, taking the box of cigarettes out of it and handing the grocery bag-covered light to Steve. “Hey, good luck.”

“Thanks.”

As Eddie put a cigarette in his mouth, Steve threw his sweatshirt at Kate and turned around to face her. “Hold onto this for me?”

She nodded, trying to avoid looking at his bare chest. Considering how much taller he was now that he was standing in front of her still sitting down in the boat, it seemed impossible to miss him. Somehow he’d gotten even hairier than last summer which only made her want to investigate him more. What else was different about him? She couldn’t help but let her mind wander. Right now, though, was not the time to grossly objectify him. She knew she must have seemed like an absolute idiot to everyone else in that boat. “Yep. Got it.”

Eddie tried to light his cigarette only for Robin to flick it out of his mouth and into the water, rendering it useless. “Gross!”

As Steve breathed deeply, almost like he was trying to also convince himself that he could do this, Kate spoke again. “Steve?” He turned around to face her and looked down to see her soft, tight-lipped smile. “Be careful down there. You got this, okay?”

He nodded once at her and smiled before diving into the water.

Kate held the sweatshirt he’d previously been wearing in her hands, gripping it tightly. It smelled strongly of him and his cologne, which was the only thing providing her comfort right now. It was cold now that she didn’t have her jacket on, the white tank top and the jeans she was still wearing were not of any help now that they were on the water. She snaked her arms just through the arm holes so she wouldn’t freeze to death. She didn’t want to put it on completely and potentially give Robin and Nancy more ammo.

“Woah, Hopper, where’d you get that?” Eddie asked, his eyes glued to her collarbone. “That is the, uh… coolest looking thing I’ve ever seen, man.”

Nancy and Robin both sent him alarmed looks, almost as if they were trying to warm him against asking her such a question.

Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion and she looked down to see what he could have been staring at. Whenever she found her scar, though, she had a moment of clarity. “Oh, shit, I forgot about that.”

Robin and Nancy exchanged glances. Forgot?

Her indifference only piqued his interest further. “What is that?”

She sighed, looking back toward the water. “It’s just a scar. Second go-round from this shit about a year and a half ago.” She paused, almost as if she was trying to figure out how to explain it. “Remember when I missed, like, a lot of school last year? Everyone talked about it because we said we got into a car accident?” 

Eddie nodded, recalling the situation. He remembered he thought they were both full of shit because Steve had looked like he’d gotten his ass beat and Kate had been in the hospital for a few days. He knew now that he’d been right to question it: their story was far from the truth, and part of him wished he could have remained oblivious to that now.

“Yeah, so this? This is actually from a, uh… Demodog, as Dustin lovingly calls them. I’m sure he’s explained all the creatures to you by now. Another guy and I, we… we were trying to escape a group of them. Just when we were about to get away, one of them pinned me to the ground and nearly tore me to shreds.”

“And… the other guy?”

“Died,” she said calmly, almost like it didn’t effect her. “He saved my life. Pulled the fucking thing off me so I could get outta there, so… basically, I got lucky that I didn’t bleed out and die. I’ve got scars all over the place, this one’s… this one’s just the worst.”

Eddie hesitated to respond to her. “Really?”

Kate nodded. “Like I said, I’m lucky I’m not dead.”

As she spoke, Nancy and Robin gave each other concerned expressions. Part of them felt relieved that it didn’t seem to bother her anymore, but they couldn’t help but think that it was because she couldn’t find it in her to care. While neither of them would ever say it out loud, both of them feared that maybe Kate didn’t feel lucky, rather that she was damned.

Eddie didn’t reply to her last statement, instead looking fear stricken. He definitely didn’t want to go to the Upside Down now if there was a chance one of those creatures could tear into his flesh like that. Kate didn’t add to the conversation, either, which didn’t help his nerves. It wasn’t her fault she was so anxious, and he knew that. Despite having only been around them for a couple of hours, it was obvious Steve and Kate had a strange relationship. Eddie couldn’t imagine that any of this had helped.

All four of them now watched the water in silence, waiting for Steve to reemerge at any given second. It had felt he’d been down there for hours.

“Where’re we at, Wheeler?” Robin asked anxiously.

“Closing in on a minute,” Nancy replied, her eyes glancing over to Kate for a second.

“Okay.”

Kate hadn’t taken her eyes off of the water since she’d looked at her shoulder. She couldn’t. If he drowned down there, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. It wasn’t like she thought he was going to drown or something. She knew that Steve could hold his breath for an insanely long amount of time, even whenever they had been younger. She’d lost count of how many times he’d faked his death in his own swimming pool, specifically when they were about thirteen or fourteen. She could only hope now that there was nothing down there waiting for him.

Whenever he sprang out of the lake, though, sending water in just about every direction, Eddie, Robin, Nancy, and Kate all jumped.

“Oh, Christ!” Eddie shouted, his voice going up about two octaves.

“I found it,” Steve said, breathing heavily still as he tread water.

Kate pulled his sweatshirt off of her arms and let it fall to the bottom of the boat as she moved closer to its edge.

“You found it?” Nancy asked, almost excited.

“I found it.” He held his hands on the side of the boat in an attempt to hold himself up a bit more so he didn’t get any more lake water in his mouth. He was still completely out of breath, nearly panting as he spoke. “Yeah. I found it.”

“Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein,” Robin said into the walkie. “Steve found the gate.”

“You okay?” Kate asked him, putting her hands over his to try and support him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.”

Whenever the kids didn’t return Robin’s message, she set the walkie down.

“It’s pretty wild,” Steve said, still panting. “It’s more a snack-size gate than the mama gate, but still, it’s pretty damn big.”

“Okay, we can talk about it more in a sec, let’s get you back in the—”

Before Kate could finish her sentence, Steve got pulled back into the water, only to pull himself back up moments later after she grabbed at his hands and arms. He looked at Kate for only a second, horror striking his face before he got dragged back under, this time losing his grip on the boat.

“Steve!” Kate shouted.

All four of them called for him as he got dragged back down into the water by an unknown entity, his figure becoming impossible to see as he got dragged to the depths of the lake.

“What the hell was that, man?” Eddie shouted.

“What happened!” Nancy asked, looking at Kate for answers.

“Kate, really, what happened!” Robin shouted.

Despite their screams for answers, Kate started breathing heavily as he got pulled down deeper and deeper into the water. She didn’t have time to think, only do. She wasn’t going to lose him, too. Not like this. That was why, without a single thought, Kate dove into the water after him.

“Kate, no!”

Since getting dragged through the lake’s depths, Steve had been pulled through the gate by a vine and had been dragged across the bottom of the lake. Now as he yelled out for help, his screams weren’t being drowned out by the water. In fact, there was no water anywhere. Once he’d been slammed into a boat covered by a large patch of vines, the grip on his ankle ceased, and he took in his surroundings as best he could.

His back burned almost like it was on fire. He felt like he had lost the top layer of his skin there, his entire back stripped raw. He looked down at the ground as he panted, taking in the vines and rough terrain he’d just been dragged across. He looked up at the dark sky, everything seemingly dead around him. He took a shaky breath whenever he heard the inhuman shrieks in the distance, the otherworldly cries that he unfortunately recognized. With just that, Steve knew where he must have been.

Steve had been pulled into the Upside Down.

As a flash of red lightning cracked the sky in two, he stood himself back up. He didn’t have any time to figure out an escape plan before he heard a call from behind him, a shriek that must have belonged to another one of the creatures there. He squinted to try and see it better, but whenever he saw the bats flying in his direction, his heart started to pound deep in his chest. The flying creatures began to swarm him from above, ready to attack at any given second.

He didn’t have much time.

Steve ran toward the stranded boat and grabbed an oar to try and defend himself. He tried beating one of the bats with his oar, but instead the creature wrapped itself around his neck with its tail, slamming him to the ground as it choked him. He squirmed as he tried to loosen its grip around his neck, using one arm to try and grab it and his other to pull at its tail. Another one of the creatures latched onto his stomach, its sharp teeth piercing into his skin, then another.

He tried fighting them as hard as he could despite his compromised state. The two on his stomach he could only keep away for so long before they came back down to feast on his skin. He knew he didn’t have much time before the tail around his neck cut off his air supply and suffocated him.

As he screamed out for someone, anyone to help him, all he could think was that he was going to die in the Upside Down alone and that no one was coming to save him.

next chapter

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[stranger-marauders]

shattered

twenty-one: skull rock

chapter summary: While Steve and Dustin lead the way to Eddie, Robin and Nancy stage an intervention.

chapter warnings: language, allusions to sex

word count: 6.0k

series masterlist | masterlist

STEVE AND DUSTIN had been fighting over who was leading the group in the wrong direction to Skull Rock since they’d gotten out of the car.

Under normal circumstances, this argument would have been settled in near seconds. Everyone would have simply believed Dustin and would have let him lead the way without question. Kate, however, had quickly jumped to Steve’s defense knowing his history with the place. She had argued that actually, she and Steve both knew the spot extremely well and that no one would be able to find it better than either of them. Despite that, Dustin had continued to argue with Steve and Kate both enough to the point that Kate had finally made the decision to hang back with Robin and Nancy as they all walked through the woods. That now meant, however, that Steve and Dustin didn’t have a mediator for their constant bickering at the front of the group as they both tried to lead the way. 

“Dude, I’m telling you, you’re taking us the wrong way,” Steve said, following closely behind Dustin. 

“It’s north,” he argued. Whenever Steve hadn’t replied, he went on. “I’m positive. I checked the map.”

Steve, however, wasn’t convinced. “You do realize Skull Rock, it’s a super popular make-out spot?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t popular until I made it popular. All right? I practically invented it,” Steve said cockily. While he had done his best in the past couple of years to kick his somewhat inflated ego from high school, he certainly would pull it back out whenever he deemed it necessary. “We’re heading in the wrong direction.”

“Steve. Where are you going?” Dustin shouted as he veered off in another direction. “Steeeeeeeeve!”

“Stop whining, let’s go. Trust me.”

The rest of the group didn’t have much confidence in either of them, to say the least. Whenever Kate had gone back to walk with Robin and Nancy, she had mumbled something about Dustin and Steve both acting like assholes just because they wanted to prove the other wrong. They all could only hope now that the two of them would actually be able to find both Eddie and Skull Rock.

“Okay, so apparently we’re going this way now?” Max asked. “I swear to God, if they get us lost…”

Nancy, Robin, and Kate each kept looking back to check in on Max and Lucas. The three girls didn’t want to disturb the two of them now that they were alone. Besides, Lucas was still processing the loss of his friend Patrick. Right now, the only thing they needed was one another, and none of them were going to get in the way of that. 

Just looking at them tugged at her heartstrings. In a strange way, Lucas and Max only reminded her now of how she and Steve were, or maybe it was the way they had used to be whenever they had been younger. No matter how, Kate thought they seemed connected in some way. She remembered when Steve had been the only one to pick her back up when she was down, and she him. She could only hope that things wouldn’t end for Lucas and Max the same way it had for her and Steve—she couldn’t imagine the two of them not being happy after everything they’d been through at such a young age.

Robin swung around on a tree branch before landing back down on the ground, then glanced over her shoulder. “Oh my God, they’re so adorable. I just wanna squeeze ‘em, you know?”

Nancy and Kate both smiled. Relatable enough.

“If I’m permitted to see a silver lining in any of this end-of-the-world doom and gloom, it would be the rekindling of old flames that never should’ve been snuffed out in the first place.”

Whenever Kate felt Robin’s gaze on her, she turned sharply to Robin as Nancy stifled a laugh.

“I… didn’t mean that as a hint or anything,” Robin said sheepishly, not expecting that sort of reaction out of her.

“Right,” Kate said, somewhat annoyed by the comment.

As much as she appreciated the sentiment, she didn’t want to have this conversation right now. It would have been different if the world wasn’t currently ending once again. If Steve wasn’t standing only twenty or so yards ahead of them. If this hadn’t been the millionth time Robin had tried convincing her to get back together with him. Kate wasn’t ready for that conversation about her and Steve, especially not with any of their mutual friends. She didn’t know if she would ever truly be ready for that conversation, but she certainly wasn’t prepared for it right now after her conversation with Steve last night.

“But if I did mean it as a hint, would that be so terrible?” Robin asked. “For me to wish happiness for both of my best friends?”

Kate scoffed. “What, you think I’m not happy just because I’m not dating Steve anymore? Because I can assure you that I have many, many other reasons to be unhappy. Plenty of them, actually, if you didn’t know.”

“I–I’m sure you do,” Nancy said, trying to bounce back from where Robin might have fumbled the ball a bit. “Robin… Robin knows that. We both know that. Better than anyone.” “What Nance said,” Robin replied quickly, nodding along somewhat fearfully.

Whenever Kate didn’t say anything else, Nancy tread lightly with her words. “It’s just… I don’t know, doesn’t everything feel just a little bit better now that you’re back in Hawkins?”

Robin scoffed whenever Kate shrugged in response. “Oh, don’t try to sell me that crap. Last time I talked to you, which was just a couple of weeks ago, by the way, the only thing you were somewhat looking forward to was flying out to California to see your sister, and even that you didn’t seem too enthusiastic about. I just chalked it up to mid-semester boredom at the time, because that’s relatable, but I knew it went deeper than that. However, now that you’re with dingus for the first time in months, you both have that lovesick puppy dog look on your faces whenever you look at each other that makes me want to projectile vomit. It’s forlorn, honestly, especially knowing how much you dumping him broke the both of you, and after seeing you two interact the past couple of days, I think you’re certifiable if you’re not realizing how much happier you seem right now despite this conversation. I mean, come on, Kate, you haven’t been this enthused about anything in, like, months, and it’s breaking my heart for you guys. I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult about all of this and refuse yet again to actually communicate about your feelings for one another.”

At first, Kate didn’t know what to say. She hesitated to reply at all mostly because she hadn’t ever thought that Robin would be able to say all of that. Even Nancy looked surprised whenever she glanced in her direction. Even if she didn’t want to admit it, Robin was right. Kate hadn’t seemed enthused about going to California because she really hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. She only made the decision to visit her sister for break because she knew it was the right thing to do. That was how she had made most of her decisions recently, really, because if you didn’t care about anything how else were you supposed to make decisions? Knowing that, though, Kate also didn’t want to admit that Robin was right. If she admitted that, then she’d have to admit that she knew things were off with herself. That she had known she hadn’t felt right for a long time and she still refused to do anything about it. She’d have to admit that nothing had felt right again until she’d gotten to spend some time with Steve alone for the first time in over half a year. She’d have to admit that maybe she’d closed that chapter of her life much faster than she was supposed to and now she had to fix it.

That was why she didn’t know what to say. What could she say, really? That Robin was actually kind of right to call her out like that? As much as Kate wanted to fire back with a bitchy remark, she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell the truth either. Kate wasn’t ready for that yet. She wasn’t quite sure that she would ever be ready to speak that many of her thoughts out loud, but she certainly wasn’t going to discuss them with Robin and Nancy before she really got to even toss ideas around with Steve.

“I… It’s not like that, okay?” Kate finally said after collecting her thoughts. “We… We broke up for a reason. Like, a lot of them, okay?”

“And how many of them were relating to just the physical distance that you chose to put between the two of you, even though he was more than happy to rent out an apartment for the both of you in New York City?” Robin asked somewhat bitterly. “And you can’t count anything relating to your dad, either, because you were doing a lot better mentally whenever you had Steve on top of your ass, and we both know that.”

“Oh my God!” Kate said annoyedly. “I get it that you all feel emotionally invested in my relationship with Steve or lack thereof, okay? I get it. But, I mean, seriously, can you all just let it the fuck go? We’re just friends now.” Whenever neither Nancy or Robin said anything else, her raised eyebrows didn’t fall. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Robin said, still unconvinced, “so if you both are so insistent that you’re ‘just friends now,’ can you please explain to me, then, why you guys were, like, snuggled up the other night? You know, all tangled up in each other’s limbs adorably on the floor of Nancy’s basement?”

“Oh!” Nancy said excitedly, almost as if she had prepared for this debate. “And how you guys went back to his house alone last night after you’ve both been checking each other out all week?”

“Oh my God, and that phone call this morning whenever I caught you both playing house?”

“And all the senseless giggling and flirting with each other than you both think none of us can hear?”

“And not to mention how you guys went grocery shopping together this morning!” Robin said. “That’s, like, the most intimate thing imaginable!” “You two are the ones that sent us!” Kate said, still unconvinced. “Seriously, Steve and I are just friends now, okay? Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Kate asked them both, her voice somewhat tense.

“Got it.”

“Right.”

As Kate walked ahead, presumably to catch up with Steve and Dustin, Robin and Nancy lowered their voices as they continued to speak.

“So we agree she’s definitely in denial, right?” Robin asked. “I’m not missing something?”

“Oh, yeah, no, definitely in denial,” Nancy said as she gripped the grocery bag she was holding tighter in her hands. “You have to remember you met them when they were, like, half a year into a serious relationship. That was, like, the best they ever were. Believe it or not, they actually used to be worse than this. I mean, back whenever Steve and I were together, he… he was so obviously in love with her. It didn’t really end up being a problem, all things considered, but it wasn’t like I didn’t know at the time.”

“Wait, I’m so confused,” Robin said, her eyebrows furrowed together. “You dated a guy you knew was completely in love with someone else for a year?”

“I mean, yeah, but I wasn’t innocent, either,” she replied. “We were both wrong for what we did. I wanted to be with Jonathan, he wanted to be with Kate. For whatever reason, we both just decided to settle for each other instead of trying to get what we really wanted.”

“Hm,” Robin said, still obviously confused. Straight people. “Interesting.”

Nancy sighed. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. None of it does. My point is with even bringing that up is that they’re both weird. Steve’s actually kinda good at downplaying how much he cares about her, or at least enough where it doesn’t raise any red flags to her. It’s actually, like, kinda scary how he’s able to hide it from her so well considering how obvious it is to everyone else. That’s why she’s so confident in the fact that they’re ‘just friends’ now. We’re also biased because I think by now we’ve both heard him, like, break down multiple times in the past few months because of how much he loves her and how she obviously doesn’t love him back anymore?”

Robin tried to hide her grimace. “Yeah. Just a couple of times.”

She was quite sure that there was nothing else that Steve could have said to explain how devastating the loss of Kate had truly been to him, but Robin would not be surprised if he found more ways to express that.

Nancy, of course, picked up on that. “Right. So that happens because she’s horrible at telling people she actually loves them. Like, absolutely horrible. Don’t, like, ever tell Kate this because I’m pretty sure she’d freak the fuck out, but Joyce says that her dad was, like, the exact same way. Especially whenever they were in high school, I guess. The only one that doesn’t have a hard time with it from that family is El, and Jonathan only told me that’s because his mom has made sure to not let it be a habit. I mean, Kate’s horrible at talking about her feelings, and she’s even worse at expressing her emotions.” Nancy paused. “You know I’m not bashing Kate, right? Like, you know about what happened to her when she was younger?”

“Yeah, I know.” Robin’s eyebrows furrowed together. “Wait, what happened?”

She sighed. “Kate had a little sister other than El, but she, uh… she passed away, and her mom left later that year. She didn’t speak to her until her dad died, and I’m pretty sure after that mess she’ll never speak to her again.” Nancy paused, almost as if to collect her thoughts before going on. “That’s why Kate’s so closed off. All she had for years was her dad and Steve, and her dad was a drunk and Steve was such an asshole.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to remind me about that.” Robin sighed. “You know, I felt horrible last summer whenever her dad died because I knew her mom was out of the picture, but whenever Steve told me that she’d lost her sister before and that was why her mom left, I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never really thought about how all of that would, uh… make her so… brusque.”

“Yeah, so do not tell her that I told you about her inability to express her emotions because of that. Like, ever. I’d rather live a happy life and have a friend that loves me, whether she tells me or not.”

Robin nodded, seeming to understand. “Got it. So Steve cares, like, way too much and has to hide it so he doesn’t feel stupid, and Kate doesn’t know how to express that she actually does give a shit without sounding soft so she just chooses to say nothing at all. That’s a fantastic combination.”

Nancy shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess so. I stopped trying to figure them out years ago. They’re both just fucking weird, okay? They always have been.” She stopped to sigh. “You know, I cannot believe I ever dated him. I used to think he was so cute whenever I was like, sixteen, but I look at him now and think Kate must actually be insane.”

With that, Robin chuckled. At least Nancy would understand Robin’s jokes about him. “I think I’ve been teasing him about that since I met her last summer.”

“As you should. I’ve been too close to the situation for too long now to tease,” Nancy said. “You know, my friend Barb told me how stupid I was for liking him before I started dating him. She thought that he was, like, totally in love with Kate in secret. I didn’t believe her then, but now I know she was right. Like, so right she didn’t even know.” She sighed. “I wish she was still here. She… She didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“I’m sorry about Barb,” Robin said. “Steve, he… he and Kate told me what happened whenever they explained this whole thing to me last summer after all the stuff with the mall.” Whenever Nancy didn’t reply, Robin continued. “You know, Barb and I were actually best friends in elementary school.”

Nancy almost smiled. “Yeah? I didn’t know that.”

“Oh yeah, for sure. I loved Barb.” Robin thought she would leave out the part about how they dreamed of exploring the world outside of Hawkins together to spare Nancy for the timebeing. “I mean, it wasn’t like we were close friends once we got to middle school or anything. She kinda met you and forgot I existed.”

She grimaced. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I was just upset at the time because I had a huge crush on—” she cleared her throat— “I mean, a–a really close bond with her. We… We were just good friends and I was jealous.”

Nancy sighed, not seeming to notice. “Still though. If I would’ve known, I—”

Robin dismissed the thought with her hand. “You don’t have to apologize for any of that. We were, like, eleven. I had braces and I played French horn. I wouldn’t have been friends with me, either.”

Whenever they both chuckled, Nancy continued on. “Well, I was just gonna say I wish Barb would’ve introduced me to you then. Maybe we could have been friends earlier.”

“Oh yeah, and then I wouldn’t be able to tease those two about their weird relationship? No thanks, I’ll pass,” Robin said jokingly. “I think I like that I’m just a bit removed from the whole thing. Someone has to bully them about their situation, right?”

Nancy shook her head as she tried not to laugh. “I think in a couple years it’ll be okay for me and Jonathan to poke fun at them. I’ve always really wanted to make jokes about this whole thing, especially now. I mean, how after being best friends for so long are they still unable to communicate like normal people? I’m serious when I say I have my jokes ready.”

“Me too!” Robin said, almost too excitedly. “You know, I think that most of their problem is that they have this inability to, like, talk to each other. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of them say something normal to the other, like, one time. They’ve gotten so used to flirting with each other that it’s just natural now, so when they both think they’re actually communicating like normal human beings, we think they might as well be sticking their tongues down each other’s throats.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Nancy said. “See, I know they both think that they’re really good at hiding it from everyone. Maybe Steve not so much, but Kate? She thinks she’s hiding it so well from all of us. I think because they can’t communicate they think we don’t notice the excessive flirting. They can hide if from each other, no one else, and that’s good enough for them. That’s my theory.”

Robin chuckled. “And you said they used to be worse?”

Nancy nodded, her lips pursed. “Yeah. It really sucked. Every time I wanted to talk to her and he was around, he would literally, like, go numb. Like, heart eyes, frozen limbs, the whole nine yards because she wasn’t speaking to him and he had realized too late that he was totally in love with her.” She paused for a second. “It was actually really sad. I tried to at least help them go on speaking terms, but he was scared of her and she was just holding a grudge.”

She grimaced. “You’re a much better woman than me. Forget dumping him, I would’ve strangled him with my bare hands.”

Nancy shrugged. “To be honest, I wasn’t much better with Jonathan. I, uh… I still liked him a whole lot even though I was still with Steve, which was completely wrong of me. I just think the funniest part about it is that all four of us are, like, kinda friends now. Like, there aren’t any hard feelings or anything on anyone’s part, at least not that I’m aware of.”

Robin, however, wasn’t convinced that that was even humanly possible.

“You know, I’m glad that she has him,” Nancy finally said. “I think… I think she really needs him, you know? I think they need each other, actually. They really are each other’s… person. I think so, anyway. Even if it is extremely aggravating to be their friend and watch them try to figure out their shit, I’m glad they have… whatever it is they have with each other. They’re cute, even if Kate would kill us if she heard us talking about this still.”

Robin’s eyebrows furrowed together as she watched Kate finally catch up with Steve and Dustin, then watch as Steve pushed Dustin out of the way excitedly to stand next to her with a bright smile on his face. “You think they’ll ever figure it out?”

Nancy shrugged. “At this rate, there’s no telling.”

The tinge of pink on Kate’s ears had yet to cease. How had Nancy and Robin managed to make Steve and Dustin’s bickering much more desirable? It hadn’t taken her too long to catch up to ther two of them considering how slow they were walking. Whenever Steve saw her out of the corner of his eyes, he couldn’t help but bring her into the conversation in an attempt to cease his and Dustin’s argument.

“Kathy! Perfect, I need to ask you something,” he said as he shoved Dustin out of the way to stand next to her.

She chuckled warningly. “I am not taking sides in this—”

“Please tell Henderson you know that I know where Skull Rock is.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together. “And why should I know that?”

“Because it’s my spot, okay? Mine. You know that.”

“Do I?” Whenever a panicked look flashed across his face, her lip curled upward. She tried her best to hide her smile as she went on. “I mean, if you’re so sure it’s your spot, I mean… I don’t know, shouldn’t you have been able to find it by now?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t do this to me right now,” he said, somewhat exasperated. “Quit fucking around, okay? We both know I know where Skull Rock is, okay? I know you do.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

He gave her a pointed look. “Do I need to remind you about that one night last May? The one right before graduation?” Her mouth dropped open in shock, her smile immediately disappearing from her face. She was mostly surprised that he would dare bring up such an occasion right now, especially in front of one of the kids. Of course she remembered that night. The night of summer and sherry and sex, the one where they’d both gotten so hammered during their what-was-supposed-to-be a romantic picnic at Skull Rock that they’d had to walk through the woods and all the way back to the cabin in their post-sex haze. He’d had to carry her halfway back because her legs finally had started giving out. They’d simply gotten lucky that Hopper and El had already gone to bed, mostly because they were extremely loud and intoxicated as they stumbled their way inside. As much as she liked to remember that night, especially his giggly little wine-drunk kisses and his perfectly tanned skin, she didn’t think it necessary to bring it up in front of Dustin, nor anyone ever for the rest of time. 

“Steven Otis Harrington, don’t you dare.”

“Ew, you brought Kate here to make out with her?” Dustin asked, disgusted.

“I mean, we didn’t exactly make out, okay—”

“Steven!” she shouted, cutting him off as her face started to gain heat. “If you even think about finishing that sentence, I will murder you.”

Of course, Steve had conveniently not heard her threat. The all too familiar set of bushes as well as a very, very familiar large boulder had distracted him.

“Oh, boom!” Steve said as he walked through the bushes. “Bada bing, bada boom. There she is, Henderson. Skull Rock.” He moved toward the rock in question as he continued to insult Dustin. “In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face.”

Dustin looked at the map and compass in his hand, looking at Kate for any kind of support. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, yeah. Even with it staring you right in the face, you can’t admit it. You just can’t admit that you’re wrong, you little butthead.”

Kate’s eyebrows furrowed together. “How old are you?”

“Let me have this, please?” he whispered just loud enough for her to hear.

“I concur.” The group of three turned around to find Eddie standing behind them. “You, Dustin Henderson, are a… total butthead.”

“Jesus, we thought you were a goner,” Dustin said as he took him in for a hug.

“Yeah, me too, man.” Eddie pulled him out in front of him to speak to him, almost as if Dustin was his son. “Me too.”

Steve awkwardly ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back as he nodded awkwardly in his direction with pursed lips like a divorced dad dropped his kid off with his ex. Kate almost laughed at the sight. That was why Steve didn’t like Eddie all that much.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Eddie said as he looked in Steve and Kate’s direction. “Kate Hopper, I presume?” She nodded once and pressed her lips together into an awkward smile as she stuck her hand out to him. “Nice to meet you.”

Steve moved closer next to her before Eddie took her hand. Even if he knew that Eddie was a bit more sane now, he wasn’t going to have any repeats of the broken beer bottle incident. While, of course, he didn’t want to see Kate in that position, he wasn’t scared of that. Realistically, he feared more of what would happen to Eddie in that situation considering she would have him pinned down to the ground in a heartbeat. Out of anything he could have expected from Eddie Munson, though, he certainly wouldn’t have assumed he’d give her such a proper greeting. 

Whenever Eddie curtsied as he took her hand, Kate’s face flushed. “Oh, uh… Y–You don’t have to do all that for me.”

“Oh, no, I insist. I am meeting former Hawkins royalty, if I’m not mistaken?”

Her faced flush even more with his words as he released her hand and stood back up straight. “I mean, I wouldn’t call it that, you know, just because I–I—”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Steve asked exasperatedly, crossing his arms disappointedly.

She turned to look at him, near cottonmouth at the events of the past five minutes. Her face still hadn’t lost any of the pink hue it had taken from either conversation. “Sorry.” 

Eddie stifled a laugh. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Well, formally meet you, I guess. I’ve heard a lot about you, man. You’re a lot less scary than I thought you’d be, though, if I’m being completely honest.”

Whenever she opened her mouth to speak, Steve shook his head as he chuckled. “Nah, she’s still scary. Promise. She’d just embarrassed ‘cause I—”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up right now, I swear to God, I will put Nair in your shampoo tonight. Got it?”

Steve’s amused expression swiftly melted into one of fear. “You don’t mean that.”

“I swear to God, Steve, if you don’t quit, you will permanently remain on my shit list, got it? Being bald will be the least of your fucking worries. You don’t want that, now do you?”

As Steve quickly shook his head in response, mumbling something under his breath that was near undecipherable as a horrified look flashed across his eyes and he ran his fingers protectively through his hair, Eddie finally realized there must have only been one thing in the world that made Steve Harrington himself lose his cool.

It hadn’t taken too long for Nancy, Robin, Lucas, and Max to catch up with the rest of the crowd and follow the shouting from beyond the bushes. Eddie took his requested groceries and began to dig into them while he waited for everyone to gather around him to hear his story of what happened at Lover’s Lake the night before.

“When I got to the shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh—” he paused to take a sip of water— “my walkie was busted, man. Drenched. So, uh, I did the thing I do now, apparently. I ran.”

Eddie chuckled as he smiled anxiously. Kate’s heartstrings pulled taut in her chest as she watched over him. She couldn’t imagine what he was currently feeling. He’d watched two people get horrifically murdered only for the police to publically regard him as a person of interest in those crimes. Even worse, it wasn’t like her father was still around to get him out of this. They simply had to hope to stop Vecna and save Eddie from a life in federal prison. Now, though, they could only try to ease his anxiety.

“Do you know what time this was? The attack?” Nancy asked.

“Yeah, no, I… I know exactly what time it was.” Eddie started to take his watch off of his wrist. “My walkie wasn’t the only thing that got soaked.”

He threw the watch over to Nancy, which made her jump as she caught it. Whenever she read the time, she nodded. “Nine twenty-seven.”

“Same time our flashlights went kablooey,” Robin said.

“Which means what, exactly?” Steve asked.

“That that surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick,” Kate explained. “That’s why our flashlights blew up.”

While she had overexplained her answer to him, Kate knew that must have been what happened. She remembered whenever the Byers had gone through three different phones in the course of a week whenever Will had tried getting in contact with his mother even though he was in the Upside Down. Whenever he would attempt at calling, the conversation would only last a few seconds before the phone blew up. She couldn’t imagine Vecna’s multidimensional attacks were much different.

“Well, we’re one step closer,” Robin said. “We know how Vecna attacks.”

“And where he attacks from.”

“So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down and drive a stake through his heart,” Max said as-a-matter-of-factly.

“If he even has a heart.”

“A stake?” Steve asked. “Is he like a vamp? Is he a vampire?”

“It was a metaphor!”

“A bullet should work on him, right?” Eddie asked.

“Not anything I have with me,” Kate answered. “The gun that I have would just piss all of those things off rather than do anything.”

Eddie’s eyes flashed with horror. “You have a gun?”

“In the glovebox of my car, yeah.”

He hesitated to respond to her. Maybe she was actually a lot scarier than he had originally thought and the kids had undersold it. “Shit.”

“I say we chop his head off,” Lucas said in an attempt to put the conversation back on topic. 

“Yeah, I’d say all of the above, but we can’t do any of that until we find a way into the Upside Down,” Nancy said.

Max crossed her arms. “We need El to get her powers back.”

“It’s not that simple, guys,” Kate said. “Besides, she’s all the way in California now. There’s no way she could get here fast enough. We’re stuck without her, unfortunately.”

“Ugh, everything was way easier,” Steve complained. “We had this girl, Kate’s sister. She had superpowers—”

“Superpowers. Yeah, you mentioned her.” Eddie then looked over to Dustin, who had been pacing behind everyone since they’d started talking. He hadn’t even tried to input into the conversation. “Hey, uh, Henderson’s not, uh… cursed, is he?”

“Cursed?” Steve asked. “No, no, no. He’s fine. Mental? Absolutely.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Dustin stopped in his tracks and yelled so loud that his voice echoed against Skull Rock.

“Boom!” Everyone turned sharply to look at him, watching as he pointed at Steve with a triumphant and I-told-you-so look plastered on his face. “Bada… bada… boom.”

Steve gave him a confused and simultaneously annoyed look, his arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows quirked in curiosity. 

“I… was right,” Dustin said. “Skull Rock was north.”

He rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You’re serious?”

“Mhm.”

“This is Skull Rock, okay?” Steve shouted exasperatedly. “You’re totally, absolutely, one hundred percent wrong. Right now!”

“Yes, Dustin admitted, his voice much softer as he spoke. “And no.”

“Oh my God,” he said as he buried his face in his hands. 

Dustin held up a compass in his hands. “This worked correctly when we left the Wheelers’. It was correct when we got in the car on Curly, but it started to slip the further east we went. Now… it’s way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn’t wrong. The compass was.”

“So you’re using faulty equipment. Dude, you’re still wrong,” Steve said, still annoyed.

“Except it isn’t faulty.” Dustin turned away from him. “Lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?”

“An electromagnetic field.” “Yep.”

“I’m sorry, I must’ve skipped that class,” Robin said, somewhat confused.

“In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. So either there’s some super big magnet around here, or…”

“There’s a gate,” Lucas finished.

“But we’re nowhere near the lab,” Nancy argued.

“But what if, somehow, there’s another gate? A gate that we don’t know about? It’d have to be smaller. Way less powerful.”

“Like a… snack-sized gate,” Kate suggested.

“How? Why?” Steve asked, confused.

“No idea. All I know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we’ve seen anything like it, it was a gate, and I hope it is, because then we’d have a way to Vecna. And a shot at freeing Max from this curse.” Without another word, Dustin started to walk off from the rest of the group, presumably in the direction of his compass.

“Where are you going? Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!” Steve shouted at him before he turned around and stopped in his tracks. “Eddie’s still a wanted man. We can’t just go for a hike in the woods.”

“This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Max and Eddie,” Dustin said, holding up his compass. “What say you, Eddie the Banished?”

Everyone turned to Eddie as he pondered his decision. “I say you’re asking me to follow you into Mordor, which if I’m totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea. But, uh, the Shire… the Shire is burning.”

Dustin hopped up and down with glee and a grin plastered on his face, presumably understanding Eddie’s reference that most people in the circle had missed.

Eddie stood back up before walking over to Dustin. “So Mordor it is.”

As everyone began following Dustin through the woods once again as they grabbed the groceries they’d brought, Steve turned to Kate and whispered ever so softly, “What is Mordor?”

Kate stifled a laugh as Eddie turned back to grab the rest of the groceries they’d bought him.

“Get your stuff, dude. Let’s go.”

That commenced the new objective: find the gate.

next chapter

taglist:

@thatsonezesty13 @cece5298 @thepowerstoner @alovelytardis @coolchick333 @stand-tall-pineapple @littlet-holmes @guichu @cinderellacauseshebroke @blackbirddaredevil23 @mads-weasley @ilovemarauders @pearlstiare @liableperfections @khaylin27 @girlwiththerubyslippers @cyarikaaa

[xoxo-ada]

princess byers masterlist (steve harrington x byers!reader)

| DO NOT REPOST ANYWHERE. reblogs are fine and appreciated! |

a stranger things rewrite in which...

y/n byers, the princess of hawkins high, has her world flipped upside down in one foul swoop. while dating the most popular guy in her school, steve harrington, she must work through a lot of distress. she juggles her baby brother going missing, her mom balancing on the edge of slightly insane, her other brother picking fights with her boyfriend, and the cherry on top, disgusting, previously un-heard of, monsters lurking in the town. the byers girl doesn't back down, however. not to monsters, not to government officials, and certainly not to her boyfriends awful friends. she'll do whatever it takes to defend the people she loves.

"your family's a disaster, your brother is missing, yet somehow, i'm the one getting yelled at? classic."

"screw you, steve."

"you already did, sweetheart."

my masterlist

season one:

the prologue 1: should i stay or should i go? 2: goodbye barb 3: off with their heads! 4: baby brother 5: ice-capped fire 6: the beginning of the end 7: hurry... 8: patient, for you.

season two:

in progress!

season three:

coming soon!

season four:

coming soon!

season five:

coming soon!

a/n: i am so excited to write this story!! i am planning on it being a full rewrite, and don't worry... steve might seem like a bit of a jerk in this first blurb but he's going to be great. and i know i said to some of you that this wasn't going to come out until after my hopper!reader series is over, but i have been thinking about writing this non-stop, and so i at least wanted to get this idea out there! i am going to start the taglist now, so let me know if you want to join!!

[fallintostrangerthings]

the vanishing of will byers | steve harrington x reader

pairing: steve harrington x byers!reader (f)

words: 1.8k

November 6th, 1983

“I have to go,” you breathlessly moan, tilting your head back as Steve Harrington’s lips slowly trail over the soft delicate skin of your neck. His strong arms wrap around your waist, and in one smooth movement, he rolls you under his naked body.

He looks cute like this.

Steve’s dark hair falls across his forehead, almost into his chocolate brown eyes, and you reach up without thinking, brushing the strands away from his face. His hand cups your cheek, thumb grazing your bottom lip before sliding behind your ear to tangle in your hair.

“Stay the night.” He murmurs.

You turn your head to read the digital clock, the red numbers glaring at you.

19:47

“I can’t. Mom and Jonathan are working and Will is going to be home soon...”

Steve’s fingers lightly glide down your naked body, his touch leaving a trail of goosebumps over your skin.

“Then just stay for a little longer, just don’t go yet.” Steve softly kisses your lips, his tongue sensually brushing against yours, his hand slipping beneath the sheet and in between your bodies, his fingertips softly grazing your stomach on the familiar path downwards.

You can’t help the soft moan that falls from your lips when his fingers glide lower, parting your thighs with a practiced ease.

“You still sure you want to go?” He breathes against your ear, a smile in his voice.

It’s hot.

The body behind you shifts, inching closer until his bare chest is pressed fully against your back, his skin is warm, too warm in fact. A content sigh escapes his lips as his arm tightens around your waist, his fingers splay across your stomach like he’s trying to hold you there even in sleep. You wake slowly, blinking up at the ceiling, your skin sticky with sweat, sleep and him. Half dazed, you tilt your head towards Steve’s alarm cloak.

00:42

“Shit.” You stumble from the bed, waking the slumbering boy.

“Babe?” His voice is rough with sleep, and you turn to find him rubbing his eyes, already reaching for the lamp.

“I’m late,” you mutter, searching the floor for your clothes. “It’s late, I should’ve left hours ago. I can’t see anything.”

The soft lamp light clicks on. Steve is propped up against the headboard now, the blankets and sheets pool around his waist, his hair sticking up in every direction, lips parted in that dazed, just-woke-up look you secretly find adorable.

“Thanks.” You glance over at him, flushed, and in a hurry.

“No, thank you,” he smirks, his gaze scanning over your naked body when you bend over to pick up your scattered clothes. “You look amazing like this.”

“Perv,” you roll your eyes and playfully toss his shirt into his face. He catches it, laughing, watching as you shimmy into your jeans, moving with urgency.

Steve swings his legs over his side of the bed, the wooden floor creaking faintly as he stands. He bends to scoop up his gray sweatpants from where he tossed them hours ago, tugging them on with the same ease he peeled them off with. His hand closes around his car keys on the dresser.

“Come on, I’ll drive you,” he says, like it’s not even a question, like it’s decided.

“I rode my bike here.” You reply, tugging on your jacket.

“And?” He looks at you, eyebrows knitting together like that changes anything. “I’m not letting you ride home alone in the middle of the night.”

“Letting me?” You arch an eyebrows, crossing his room to stand in front of him. The corner of your mouth lifts into a slight smirk, your fingers gently toying with the drawstring of his sweats. “Careful, Harrington… People might start thinking that you care.”

“Care? About you?” Steve lets out a short breath, a mix between a scoff and laugh, but there’s a tension behind it. “Come on, we said casual, no feelings… Right?”

You swallow the lump in your throat, nodding at his words.

He’s not wrong, you were the one who said that. No strings, no messy complications, most importantly no heartache.

Or so you thought.

“Right,” you echo, your tone a little too sharp for your liking. “And since it’s so casual, I’ll be riding my bike home.”

You sling your bag over your shoulder in one motion, hoping you can move fast enough so he didn’t notice the flicker of emotion in your voice. Your boots thud softly against the staircase as you head for the front door.

His house is quiet, it always is. His parents gone again, off at another one of his dad’s conferences. Not that they’re ever really there.

Just as your hand reaches for the doorknob, you hear his voice behind you, softer now.

“Wait…”

You glance back, Steve’s standing at the bottom of his stairs in the dim light, hair messy, chest bare, sweatpants hanging low on his hips.

“Please,” he says, stepping closer to you, his hands sliding around your waist, the keys still clutched loosely in his right hand. “Just let me drive you home.”

“I live down the street, Steve. It’s Hawkins, nothing bad happens here.” You lean back in his embrace, your hands resting against his muscular chest, staring up into his eyes.

“Fine, fine, fine.” He blows out a frustrated breath, running a hand through his already wild hair, looking away. “Can you just… call me? So I know you got home safe?”

You pause for a moment, Steve looking anywhere but at you when he says those words.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at school,” you say instead, standing on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek.

But before you can pull away, his arms wrap tighter around your waist and Steve leans down to kiss you. One of his hands slides up, threading into your hair at the nape of your neck, gently guiding your head as he tilts it just right to deepen the kiss. Both your mouths part simultaneously, familiar, allowing his tongue to slide in, languidly stroking against your own.

His other arm tightens around you, pressing your bodies flush together, you let out a quiet moan before you can stop it.

When he finally pulls back, it’s only just.

His lips hover, his forehead drops to yours, and for a long second, neither of you move, just catching breath that has been stolen by a kiss that didn’t feel too casual.

“Goodnight, Steve.”

The night air is crisp and has more than a slight chill to it as you pedal through the quiet, dark streets of Hawkins, your tires crunching over loose gravel the only sound in the sleepy town.

“Shit.” Both Jonathan’s and your mom’s cars are parked at the front of your home. The porch light has been purposely left on for you, most likely by your younger brother, aware that you’re not in the safety of your bedroom.

You slip through the front door as quietly as possible, but the rusted hinges betray you, groaning loud enough to make you wince. You pause, waiting, listening.

The house is dark and silent as you continue your path down the hallway, tiptoeing past your younger brother’s rooms, past your mother’s.

Your door clicks softly closed behind you, with your back against the door, you let out a small breath, you touch your lips, still tingling from Steve Harrington’s kiss.

You wearily enter the kitchen, trying to act casual when you notice Jonathan standing by the counter, carefully stirring scrambled eggs in a pan, his eyes darting to yours, narrowing slightly. The shower running in the background gives you both privacy from your mother for his upcoming interrogation.

“So,” he says breaking the silence you were all too eager for. “Where were you last night?”

“Does it really matter?” You sigh dismissively, grabbing a glass from the cupboard, filling it with orange juice.

“I got home at midnight and your bike wasn’t outside, you weren’t in your room.”

You pause for just a second, then take a sip of your juice, your eyes carefully avoiding his. From the corner of your eye, you see him glance at the stove, jaw tightening like he’s trying to keep something back before turning back to you.

“You know Harrington’s a piece of shit, right?” He says all knowing, his voice without judgement. “He’s not good for you, he’s just using you. I’ve seen him and Nancy at school.”

You don’t flinch, you act like it doesn’t bother you.

“I’m not you, Jonathan. I don’t care about Nancy Wheeler.” You tell him. You tell him the lie you tell yourself, hoping if you say it enough it will come true. “And maybe I’m the one using him, he’s hot, he’s easy, he doesn’t ask questions. Did you ever think about that?”

The bathroom door creaks open, and your mom steps out ready for work, muttering to herself about her late shift and car keys she can never seem to find.

The conversation between you and Jonathan is finished for now. You slip out of the kitchen without a word, heading down the hall toward Will’s room to wake him for school.

“Will! Time to get up, baby.” You frown when you open the door to Will’s unmade bed, but there’s no sign of your baby brother in his room.

Your mom walks past just a moment later, clearly with the same plan in mind, only to stop short when she sees the empty bed.

“He came home last night, right?” Your mom follows you as you walk back into the kitchen about to ask Jonathan the same question. “Did he come home or not?”

“I don’t know, I was working, Erik asked me to cover a shift.” Jonathan justifies his absence to their mother, talking about the extra cash they sometimes desperately needed.

“You don’t know?” Joyce snaps before turning to you. “And what about you?”

Your eyes dart to Jonathan’s.

“I… I don’t know. I was out,” you mumble, the words barely above a whisper, a heaviness of guilt begins to creep up and settle into your chest.

“He was at the Wheelers all day, he probably just slept over.” Jonathan offers quickly. Your eye’s flicker gratefully at him, but the guilt is still lingering.

“What is wrong with you two? I can’t believe you two sometimes.” Joyce shakes her head as she grabs the phone off the wall. You anxiously play with the sleeve of your sweater, waiting for confirmation that Will just slept over Mike’s.

“You know, I think he might’ve just left early for school, thank you very much.” You and Jonathan listen on as your mom lies to Mrs Wheeler.

Will’s not there.

[whoopsydaisy12]

masterlist💫

hello losers....

welcome to my master list

Undead promises. (completed)

(HenryCreel x reader x Steveharrington)

Chapter 1: shivers

Chapter 2: the watch party 

Chapter 3: home sweet home

Chapter 4: slipping through my fingers

Chapter 5: survival or submission 

Chapter 6: the woods 

Chapter 7: you wouldn’t lie to me?

Chapter 8: not real

Chapter 9: there’s a difference 

Chapter 10: touching 

Chapter 11: helping 

Chapter 12: just another Tuesday 

Chapter 13: in his absence 

Chapter 14: robins funny hair 

Chapter 15: crave me 

Chapter 16: I don’t mind defiance 

Chapter 17: a victorious defeat

Chapter 18: relax 

Chapter 19: take what you want

Chapter 20: pretending?

Chapter 21: I promise. 

Chapter 22: freedom

Chapter 23: promises don’t survive death 

Chapter 24: never real

Chapter 25: love

Chapter 26: this isn’t imagination?

Chapter 27:  something more interesting 

Chapter 28: You know it.

Chapter 29: grid issues

Chapter 30: Grief

Chapter 31: 8 letters

Chapter 32: man who can’t be moved

Chapter 33: cut him off

Chapter 34: Darling…Breathe

Chapter 35: pros vs cons

Chapter 36: Are you even speaking English???

Chapter 37: it’s just a dream

Chapter 38: wake up

Chapter 39: 7 days

Chapter 40: The right choice

[keer-y]

Carriage House

pairing: gator tillman/f!reader wc: 1.9k tags/tw/cw (whole work): dark fic, slow burn, season 5 rewrite but canon compliant, roy tillman being roy tillman, abuse (emotional and physical), forced marriage, abduction/kidnapping a/n: as the fic goes on, i will start tagging for the specific chapters.

MASTERPOST//all chapter links &&

Chapter 2: Dropout

It turned out that whoever was in the heavy metal bedroom didn't sleep, apparently. You had padded down the hallway to use the bathroom, anxious the entire time—you even checked behind the shower curtain in the bathtub, just in case—the whole time hearing militant drums and crashing cymbals. The sound followed you down the hall to the guest room, and even after you stripped down to your sweater, socks, and underwear, figuring you should try to sleep just to pass the time until you could call out of this weird ass place, you could still hear the drumming. With no phone and the sky outside still black, it was impossible to tell what time it was. Eventually, the music became distorted to your sleep-deprived, anxious mind. It became a background noise, fading away as you drifted off to sleep.

You awoke the next morning to the sun shining down onto your face—you'd forgotten to draw the curtains the night before, but it was probably for the best. You could no longer hear music, but what you did hear was the raucous sound of a large crowd of people one floor down. 

Shit. Breakfast.

You sat up quickly, rubbing one of your eyes as you pushed the covers off of yourself, immediately cringing at the cold air of the room. You rolled out of the bed, glancing around the room in the light of day, and immediately zeroing in on clothing that had been laid out for you at the end of the bed. When had someone snuck in here to do that? You hadn't heard anyone, and obviously they had been stealthy about it since the door had that obnoxious squeak if opened too wide. It made you shudder, it made you pull on the jeans quickly in case someone, whoever it may be, could see you standing there half naked.

You opted to keep your sweater on, but pulled the plaid shirt on over it, buttoning it. Your boots were exactly where you'd left them the night before, a pair of fake leather designer numbers you'd gotten second-hand, not suitable at all for outdoor chores, but truthfully you had no idea what Karen was going to have you doing today, so you pulled them on anyway. The jeans you'd been given were a bit too long and the boots helped keep you from tripping over them on your way downstairs.

The kitchen was alive with activity when you arrived. Roy was seated at the head of the table, an empty chair to his left. Beside that were two little girls, faces the same with clothes to match. More men than you'd seen the night before were taking up most of the rest of the table, plates empty already or nearly so.

“Ah,” Roy boomed, silencing all of the other conversations happening around him, and drawing Karen's attention to you from where she stood at the stove, fixing two plates, presumably for the little girls. “Look who finally decided to join us. Good morning, darlin'.”

You tried to keep the scowl off your face as every single person at the table looked toward you. Fiddling with the sleeve of the flannel you'd been given, you shrugged a shoulder. “Couldn't set an alarm,” you said. “Phone's dead, remember?” Roy smirked, opening his mouth to retort, but you kept going. “If I can just use your landline, I'd be out of your hair for good.”

Without waiting for permission, you stepped into the kitchen and headed for the phone hanging on the wall. Before you'd even taken three steps, Roy looked at the young man seated at his right hand. At the look, he was up, his chair skidding back a little on the tile floor with the speed at which he'd risen. He beat you to the phone, clapping his hand down onto the receiver and resting his other hand on the butt of the gun in his thigh holster—a fucking gun.

“I'd rethink touchin' without askin', sweetheart,” he said, and Roy stood up behind him, clearing his throat. The younger man looked back at Roy but made no move to retreat, at least until Roy cleared his throat again.

“That's enough, Gator. I think she gets it,” he said, and even as you watched, you saw the young man—Gator, apparently—lose the edge of confidence he'd had in his expression. It melted away to one of admonishment; he lowered his eyes, deferring to Roy's decree, and stepped away from the phone, returning to his seat, the legs of the chair scraping as he pulled it back to the table.

Your cheeks were hot, you could feel them, enough pairs of eyes on you that you felt utterly exposed even though you were dressed in layers. As you watched the scene at the table, Karen walked over calmly, as though nothing had happened, and put the identical plates down in front of her girls. Gently, she smoothed her hand over their pigtails, one then the next, before she sat down beside them and began eating her own meal, the last one to get any food even though she had surely been the first one to rise. Business as usual, despite the outburst.

Your eyes drifted over the others at the table, all of them either eating or preparing to get up and go about their daily business, but finally your gaze settled on Roy.

“You missed breakfast, young lady,” he said, and the phrase made you lose what appetite you did have after a long, cold night. “If Karen thinks there's enough time before you all get started today, you can make a plate, otherwise...”

“There isn't,” Karen said, even though she had barely begun eating herself, and she'd left a stack of pancakes and half a pan of eggs on the stove. “Tomorrow, wake up on time.”

“I want to call my parents,” you said, deciding to forget about the towtruck.

“No need,” Roy said. “I spoke to them this morning.”

“Excuse me?” you said, legitimately shocked. “When?”

“When you were upstairs sleeping in,” Roy said, sitting back down at the table and picking up his coffee mug, taking a long sip. Beside him, you saw Gator reach for his as well, taking just as long a draught. You stared daggers at the back of Gator's head, only because you didn't think Roy would take too kindly to you killing him with your eyes.

“Stick to Karen today,” Roy continued, lifting his napkin from his lap and wiping his mouth, before tossing it onto the table; it landed partly on Karen's plate, but she only moved the cloth off of her food without complaint or comment. “She'll show you the ropes.”

“But what about my parents?” you pushed, stepping closer. Gator shifted his chair, turning it just enough that he could easily intercept you if you approached Roy too quickly. “I want to talk to them.”

“I already explained your predicament,” Roy said, not even looking at you as he spoke. “They were more than grateful that I'm putting you up for the time being. As a matter of fact, when I explained that I was the sheriff here and they learned that you'd gone and dropped out of school—” Your mouth dropped open, because how did he find that out? “—they thought it might be... beneficial that you get some other kind of education. So how's about that?” He glanced up at you. “Close that mouth, darlin', around here that looks like an invitation.”

You snapped your mouth shut as a few of the other men snickered. Gator only looked from you to Roy, who nodded his head toward his staff (Were they here of their own free will? you wondered), and the crowd around the table dispersed except for the twin girls, Gator, and Karen.

Roy looked down at Gator, still seated, and as soon as their eyes met, Roy's gaze angled down his nose at the younger man, Gator stood, back ramrod straight, quite nearly at attention. “Sir.”

“You head on down to the station,” Roy said, gesturing to Gator with his chin. “I'll be up there soon, just gotta make sure our little miss had a good evening last night.”

Gator hesitated, something you could tell just by looking pained him to do—disobeying orders from the sheriff didn't seem high on most people's lists. “Sir,” he said again, though this time his tone was slightly imploring. “I thought you might want to ride together?” It pitched up at the end, a question, but he cleared his throat, making it seem less desperate.

Roy leveled Gator with a look. “I have business here, boy, I just told you that. Get.”

Gator just mumbled “Sir” for the third time, hurried around the table, and left the room. You heard him mount the stairs quickly, and during the few moments of quiet while he presumably readied himself for the day, Roy looked back at you.

“Now, I know you're a bit touchy after—” he started, but you interrupted, because touchy wasn't what you were, and if it was, you had every right to be.

“I want to speak to my parents,” you said. “You say you spoke to them already, but I need to talk to them. I need to explain about school—how did you even know about that?”

Roy only smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes. “I'm the sheriff, darlin'. I know half the damn bureaucracy in this state, and every single one'a them is in my pocket. Ain't that far of a stretch that I can learn any damn thing I need to.”

You stared him down, not speaking for long enough that Gator was thumping his way back down the stairs. Out of your periphery, you saw him pause at the kitchen door, but neither Roy nor Karen reacted to him. One of the little girls waved to him and whispered “Bye, Gator.” He smiled and waved back, then went on his way, slamming the front door as he left the house.

“So what, you're kidnapping me?”

Karen's head snapped up at that, and Roy's lips flattened into a thin line.

“Now, I'd be careful about levelin' accusations in this house,” he said.

“What is this, then?” you asked, incredulous. “I'm not allowed to call my parents, you won't let me charge my phone, you researched me, and at this point I'm fairly sure you won't let anyone give me a ride back to get my car, so... what am I missing here, Sheriff? Are you above the law?”

“I am the law,” Roy said, and you didn't miss the way his chest puffed out a bit when he said it, like he really, truly believed it. “And your car is on its way here as we speak. I'm having it towed here for you, so we can figure out what's wrong with it and get it fixed for you.”

Despite everything in you telling you not to hope, a small glimmer sparked to life in your chest. Did that mean he would let you drive out of this hellhole?

“We'll need another good vehicle for the winter,” Roy concluded.

And just like that, the warm bubble in your chest popped.

&& taglist: @sunriseinhawkins @snoopyharrington @ghostlyriddles @souperbloom @sheisjoeschateau @morninglesss @cheugy-djobe @cpnsteverogers @nowandajenn @configurre @cecesblogg @britt-mf @harringtondarling @s3xytosomeone @valentine-night @literal-tv-menace @ch3rryshark @exooojongdaeee @amy-brooklyn99 @stydiaforeverbitchezz @francellapa5carelli

[harringtonsdiary]

don't kiss and tell masterlist

steve harrington x reader fanfiction | fratboy!steve | platonic!stobin (i promise) | mentions of cheating (but it's not real cheating) | mean!steve, playboy!steve | sort of friends to enemies to fwb to lovers | slowish burn | angst | hurt ... eventual comfort words: 212k summary: When you find out your college roommate/friend robin buckley's boyfriend, steve harrington— who you thought beat all stereotypical frat boy odds— is cheating on her, you find it hard to understand why she still wants to be with him. But there is more than meets the eye. You aren't sure if you want to be roped into it.

Teaser Rules/Playlist Chapter one Chapter two Chapter three Chapter four Chapter five Chapter six Chapter seven Chapter eight Chapter nine Chapter ten Chapter eleven Chapter twelve Chapter thirteen Chapter fourteen Chapter fifteen Chapter sixteen Chapter seventeen chapter eighteen epilogue

[covered-in-you-now]

I wanna be yours - Part 1

Summary : Gator Tillman has your heart. You'd do anything for him, but he treats you like you're nothing. Will he ever change his mind and his beliefs ?

TW : Mean!gator , talks about ED, little bit of smut, not much else. let me know if you like

It was now 3PM. You texted Gator 4 hours ago and he still hasn’t answered. You pulled out your phone, again, to check the conversation, just in case you missed a notification. Nothing. The desperate texts you sent looking back at you. 

11:04 am : Hey Gates, am I seeing you tonight ? Let me know :) 

1:57 pm : Hey, I don’t know if you missed my text, are you coming over tonight ? I can cook us something if you’d like ? Waiting for your reply ! 

2:48 pm : Gator are you okay ? Please text back, I’m starting to worry … 

It was a lie, you weren’t worried. You just tried to get a reaction out of him. Not texting back was a habit to him. Your relationship was complicated. Well, it was complicated to you. You were so deeply in love with that man, while he only saw you as an easy fuck whenever he wanted to. The amount of times you felt your stomach drop, your heart shatter or your knees weaken because of something stupid he said or done was unreal. But for some reason, you couldn’t stop chasing him. Every time you thought you were finally done, he said or did something sweet that had you crawling right back to him. 

You work at the only coffee shop in town, pretty busy in the mornings, when people needed their caffeine intake, less crowded after noon. At 4PM, your shift was over, still no text from Gator. 

“Well fuck him then” you told yourself. You’re not gonna wait for a text, you weren’t that desperate, or at least you thought you weren’t … Remembering the state of your fridge right now, you decided it was time to head to the grocery store. 

You picked up a basket, and started to think about what to eat tonight, secretly checking if Gator had texted back. Of course he didn’t. Fucking asshole. You decided to pick a few things, some veggies, chicken, a few spices you were running low on and a tub of chocolate ice cream. You paid for your groceries and headed home. 

Once inside the warmth of the little house you owned, you could finally relax. Taking your shoes off, putting the groceries away and decided to watch some TV while scrolling aimlessly on your phone, the tub of ice cream on your lap. Around 7PM, with your stomach full of ice cream, your eyes were starting to shut, your 6AM alarm probably not helping. The vibration of your phone woke you up, Gator finally texted something back. 

Gates 🐊 - 7:09pm : be there in 20. 

What the fuck ? No way. He thinks he can just ghost you the whole day and come back like that ? 

7:10pm : No, can’t, I’m busy. Should’ve texted earlier. 

As soon as you hit send, you regretted it. He was such a dick but you wanted to see him more than anything right now. You waited a few minutes, wondering if you should text again, when he did first. 

Gates 🐊 - 7:20pm : yea right. be there in 10. 

God … He was insufferable but your stomach flipped at the thought of seeing him tonight. You jumped from the couch and rushed to the bathroom for the quickest shower of your life. You managed to dry your skin with a tower while fixing your hair, and putting on a nice lingerie set you picked out just for him. Looking at yourself in the mirror, you weren’t entirely satisfied. You knew you weren’t the model skinny type, you had a little bit of extra fat here and there, which you’ve been self conscious about your entire life. Hearing a car pull up in your driveway, you threw on a simple black dress and headed towards the door. When you opened it, he was already behind with a shit eating grin on his face. 

“Hey mama, what’s for dinner ?”. You looked at him, not really understanding what he was saying. 

“Excuse me ?”. He looked confused at your words. 

“You said you’d cook dinner, so what are we eating ?”. You felt your blood boil. 

“No Gator, I asked if you wanted to come tonight for dinner but you never replied. I didn’t know you were coming so I didn’t cook anything”. He furrowed his brows, as if you just said the most absurd thing ever. 

“So there’s no food ?”. As soon as the words came out of his mouth you tried to close the door, but he put his boot in the way. “Stop, Jesus I’m joking. You’re too sensitive tonight. Is it your bad week or something ?”. 

“You’re an asshole. I’ve been texting you all day long, you don’t reply and you think you can just come here whenever you want to ?” You could feel the anger in you. God he was so arrogant. A smirk appeared on his lips, while he entered your house and closed the door behind him. 

“Okay. Should I leave then ? Uh ? Go and find what I want somewhere else ?” There it is. The little spike he put in your heart again. 

“Fuck you” was all you managed to reply before kissing him. He kissed right back, already starting to take your dress off. His hands roamed your body, tugging at the bra you were wearing to free your boobs. “Fuck mama, those tits are insane” he said as he started to suck on one of your nipples. It felt so good. It always does with him. Your hand went through his slicked back hair, gripping while he was taking off his belt. You barely had time to register anything when he already pushed his pants down just enough to free his cock. Grabbing a condom in his pocket, he put it on and started pushing into you immediately. 

“Gator be gentle” you whispered but it was already too late, he was bottoming out inside you with a groan. “Fuck, so damn tight mama, I love this pussy”. He started thrusting inside you, deep and fast while holding you against the door you almost slammed in his face. He suddenly withdrew, pushing you onto the couch, your back facing him. He spat right on your hole before pushing himself inside again. “You like that don’t you ? Me coming just to fuck you like the slut you are”. You could feel your walls clenching at his words, you loved when he talked like that during sex. He reached in front of you to rub circles around your clit. It was incredible. He kept saying dirty things in your ears and you came with a loud moan. 

With one final thrust, he came inside the condom with a groan, pulled out, tied a knot around it before throwing the condom out. You turned around to look at him, but he was already pulling his pants up and fixing his hair. “Wait Gator, maybe you could stay and I could cook dinner, I bought some chicken earlier. I could make chicken Alfredo, I know you love that” you told him. He looked at you as if you were insane. 

“No, you know I don’t stay after. I need to go back to the ranch, early shift tomorrow.” He replied. “I know but maybe this could be an exception ? You could stay the night if you think you’ll be tired after dinner. I don’t mind.” He laughed at that. There, another little spike in your heart. 

“No, I’m not your boyfriend, I don’t do that shit. See you later” He slammed the front door behind him, leaving you naked and humiliated on your couch. You felt the tears creeping in your eyes. No, you can’t cry for him, he doesn’t deserve it. Swallowing your pride, you put your clothes back on and headed to the kitchen. Suddenly, this feeling started to creep. This horrible idea that food was going to solve all your problems. You were so jealous of everyone with a healthy relationship with food. Why were you like this ? You tried to fight it, you really tried. But it was just too strong. You ended up on the floor, crying, your stomach so full you felt like you were going to explode. You ended up going to bed crying once again. Hoping that tomorrow would bring better things. 

[26wh57]

Eddie Munson x gf reader

Behind him, the bell above the door jingled. He didn’t look up—customers usually wandered aimlessly for at least five minutes before asking him where the *good* music was hidden, like he was gatekeeping the secret stash of bangers instead of just working minimum wage at a place that still sold cassettes. But then there was a familiar laugh, bright and a little off-key, and Eddie’s head snapped up so fast his hair whipped his own cheek.

You were leaning against the new arrivals display, already flipping through a stack of vinyl like you owned the place. Your jacket was dotted with rain, and your boots left damp prints on the scuffed linoleum, but you didn’t seem to care. “You gonna help me or just stare?” you said without looking up, grinning like you already knew the answer.

Eddie’s fingers stilled. “Depends,” he said, propping his chin on his palm. “You gonna buy something this time, or is this another elaborate scheme to distract me while you shoplift?”

You gasped, pressing a hand to your chest like he’d wounded you. “I would *never*,” you said solemnly, and then immediately tucked a record under your arm with all the subtlety of a bulldozer in a china shop.

“Mmm I have misd you,” Eddie murmured into your hair as you leaned back against him, the two of you swaying slightly to the faint hum of whatever album he’d put on the store’s ancient sound system. His arms looped loosely around your waist, fingers tapping an absent rhythm against your hip bone through the fabric of your jeans.

You snorted, tilting your head to catch the playful glint in his eyes. “You saw me yesterday, dumbass.”

“And?” He shrugged, the motion making his rings clink softly against each other. “Still missed you. Tragic, really.”

The bell above the door jingled again, and Eddie let out an exaggerated sigh, dropping his forehead to your shoulder for a brief second before straightening. “Duty calls, sweetheart,” he said, giving your waist one last squeeze before sauntering off toward the newcomer—some kid with wide eyes and a Iron Maiden shirt two sizes too big. You watched as Eddie immediately lit up, his whole body leaning into the conversation like he’d been waiting all day for someone to ask him about the difference between the original and remastered *Number of the Beast* pressing.

You wandered toward the back of the store, trailing your fingers along the spines of alphabetized records until you hit the M’s. Eddie’s handwriting on the divider was illegible as always, the ‘M’ looking more like a drunken seagull mid-flight. The record you’d tucked under your arm earlier—some obscure Bowie bootleg—was still there, and you pulled it out again, turning it over in your hands. The sleeve was worn at the edges, the kind of well-loved that suggested it had been passed around for years before ending up here.

From across the store, Eddie’s laugh carried over the muffled sound of guitar riffs—loud, unselfconscious, the kind of laugh that made people turn their heads in public. You peeked around the corner just in time to see him dramatically miming a guitar solo for the kid, who looked equal parts terrified and delighted. Catching your eye, Eddie winked, then immediately fumbled the air-guitar motion, nearly elbowing a display of *Thriller* reissues. The kid giggled, and Eddie clutched his chest like he’d been shot. “Betrayed,” he declared. “By my own fan.”

The rain outside had picked up, drumming against the store’s front windows in a steady rhythm. You traced the condensation on the glass with your fingertip, drawing a lopsided heart before smudging it away. Behind you, the register chimed, and Eddie’s voice floated over, warm and teasing. “You planning on paying for that, or are we gonna have to escalate this to a full-on heist?”

You turned, holding the record up like a shield. “Depends,” you said, mirroring his earlier tone. “You gonna give me the ‘employee discount’ again, or do I have to bribe you with those shitty gas station donuts you like?”

Eddie’s grin sharpened into something wicked as he vaulted over the counter with all the grace of a startled giraffe, his rings clattering against the glass. “Oh, we’re negotiating now?” he purred, crowding you back against the record bins until the divider’s drunken seagull ‘M’ dug into your spine. His knee slotted between yours, and suddenly the shitty gas station donuts weren’t the only thing on the table.

You rolled your eyes, but your fingers curled into the front of his vest anyway, dragging him closer. “You’re ridiculous,” you muttered, just as his teeth grazed your earlobe. The kid with the Iron Maiden shirt had vanished—probably traumatized or possibly enlightened—leaving the two of you alone in the dim, rain-soaked glow of the store’s flickering fluorescent lights.

Eddie’s hands were everywhere at once, mapping the familiar territory of your hips, your waist, the curve of your neck like he was relearning you. His lips trailed down your throat, pausing to nip at the hollow beneath your jaw. “Missed this too,” he murmured against your skin, his voice rough enough to send a shiver down your spine.

The record bin creaked ominously as you arched into him, knocking a stack of Queen LPs sideways. Eddie caught them one-handed without breaking stride, his other hand sliding under the hem of your shirt to trace idle circles on your stomach. “Careful,” he teased, breath hot against your collarbone. “Destroying store property’s a felony, sweetheart.”

You bit back a laugh, tangling your fingers in his hair. “You’re such a hypocrite,” you breathed, just as his thumb dipped lower, brushing the waistband of your jeans. The rain outside blurred the world beyond the windows into something distant and unimportant, the steady patter against the glass syncing with the quickening rhythm of Eddie’s pulse beneath your fingertips.

The record bin groaned in protest as Eddie pressed you harder against it, his knee nudging your thighs wider with a practiced ease that made your breath hitch. His hands slid down to grip the backs of your thighs, hoisting you up onto the edge of the bin with a grunt—somehow managing not to topple the entire alphabetized section of ‘80s glam rock in the process. You wrapped your legs around his waist instinctively, the worn denim of his jeans rough against your inner thighs as he slotted himself between them.

"Still think I'm ridiculous?" Eddie murmured against your mouth, his lips curling into a smirk as you bit back a moan. His fingers hooked into your belt loops, tugging you flush against him until you could feel every inch of him through the layers of fabric. The faded Mötley Crüe logo on his t-shirt scratched your chest as he rocked into you, the slow grind deliberate and maddening.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you registered the distant chime of the store’s bell—probably another customer wandering in out of the rain—but Eddie didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, he nipped at your lower lip, his tongue swiping over the sting before diving back in with a hunger that made your toes curl. His hands slipped under your shirt, calloused palms skimming up your ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts with just enough pressure to drag a whimper from your throat.

"Eddie," you gasped, arching into his touch as his fingers found the clasp of your bra. "Someone could—"

"Could what?" he interrupted, his voice low and rough as he popped the clasp open with a flick of his wrist. "Walk in on us?" His teeth grazed your pulse point, his breath hot against your skin. "Let 'em watch."

The record bin wobbled dangerously as Eddie maneuvered you sideways, his hands never leaving your body—one gripping your thigh to keep you steady, the other tugging your shirt up just enough to expose the flushed skin of your stomach. He kissed you like he was trying to memorize the shape of your mouth, all teeth and tongue and barely-contained hunger, but when he pulled back just enough to fumble with his belt, his movements were deliberate.

"Turn around," he murmured against your lips, his voice rough enough to make your knees weak.

You blinked up at him, still half-dazed. "What?"

Eddie grinned, all sharp edges and mischief, as he nudged you sideways with his hip. "Side by side, sweetheart. Trust me." His fingers skimmed down your spine as he guided you to face the bin, your back pressed flush against his chest. The cold metal of his belt buckle bit into the small of your back, but then his hands were on your hips, yanking your jeans down just far enough to expose the curve of your ass.

"You're insane," you breathed, but you arched into him anyway, bracing your forearms against the record bin as Eddie's palm smoothed up your thigh.

The record bin groaned under your combined weight as Eddie pressed flush against your back, his teeth sinking into the curve of your shoulder with a possessiveness that made your stomach clench. His hands were everywhere—one splayed across your belly to keep you pinned against him, the other slipping past the waistband of your panties with a groan muffled into your skin. “Fuck, you’re already—”

You cut him off with a gasp as his fingers found you slick and wanting, his calloused fingertips circling with just enough pressure to make your thighs tremble. “Shut up,” you hissed, but it came out half-strangled when he crooked two fingers inside you without warning, his palm grinding against your clit on every thrust. The record dividers dug into your forearms as you braced yourself, the sharp edges grounding you even as Eddie’s free hand tugged your hair to expose your throat to his mouth.

“Always so fucking perfect,” he muttered against your pulse point, his breath ragged as he worked you open with ruthless precision. His hips stuttered against your ass, the denim of his jeans rough where it rode up your thighs. “Wanna feel you come on my fingers first—wanna hear it.”

You choked on a moan as he twisted his wrist just so, the heel of his palm hitting that sweet spot that made your vision blur. Distantly, you registered the sound of rain still hammering against the windows, the hum of fluorescent lights—but it all faded under the relentless drag of Eddie’s fingers and the hot press of his lips along your spine.

Then his hand was gone, and you barely had time to whine before the rasp of his zipper filled the silence. His cock slapped against your ass, hot and heavy, and Eddie’s laugh was a dark, breathless thing in your ear. “Patience, sweetheart.” He slicked himself with your arousal, his grip rough as he lined up. “Side by side, remember? Gotta—”

The head of Eddie’s cock caught at your entrance, and for a heartbeat, he just held himself there, his breath ragged against the nape of your neck. “Fuck,” he muttered, his voice rough enough to send a shiver down your spine. Then he pushed in—slow, deliberate, until his hips were flush against your ass, the stretch making you gasp. His fingers dug into your hipbones, holding you steady as he rocked back and out, then snapped forward again with a groan muffled into your shoulder.

“Side by side,” Eddie panted against your skin, his teeth grazing the curve of your shoulder as he set a punishing rhythm. His free hand slid around your waist, fingers splaying across your stomach to keep you arched back against him while his other hand braced against the record bin, sending Queen LPs skittering sideways. “Like—fuck—like this.”

The angle was dizzying—every thrust dragged against that sweet spot inside you, his cock hitting deeper than you remembered, and you could feel every inch of him in the way your thighs trembled. The record bin creaked ominously under your combined weight, the dividers digging into your forearms as Eddie fucked you with a rhythm that matched the rain hammering against the windows. His rings clinked against the metal frame, his breath hot and uneven against your neck.

You tried to reach back, to tangle your fingers in his hair, but Eddie caught your wrist and pinned it to the bin instead, his grip tight enough to bruise. “Uh-uh,” he growled, his voice dark with something possessive. “Keep ‘em there—want you right where I can see you.” His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist, a sharp contrast to the way his hips snapped forward again, the slap of skin echoing in the empty store.

Eddie’s hand slid lower, his fingers finding your clit with practiced ease, his touch rough and relentless. “Gonna come for me?” he murmured, his voice fraying at the edges as his thrusts grew erratic. “Right here, pressed up against my shitty record bin—fuck—” His rhythm stuttered when you clenched around him, and his laugh was breathless, ragged. “Yeah, like that. Knew you could take it.”

The record bin shuddered with every snap of Eddie’s hips, the dividers rattling like loose teeth as he fucked you from behind with a rhythm that matched the rain’s relentless pulse against the windows. His chest was a furnace at your back, sweat-slick and heaving, his breath hot and ragged against the nape of your neck. One hand stayed splayed across your stomach, fingers digging into your skin hard enough to leave marks, while the other braced against the bin—knuckles white around the metal frame as he held himself upright, his rings clinking with every thrust.

“Side by side,” Eddie repeated, his voice rough as gravel, lips dragging along the curve of your shoulder. His teeth grazed the tendon there, sharp enough to make you gasp, and he groaned when you clenched around him. “Fuck—just like this.” His fingers slid lower, finding your clit again, and his touch was merciless—circling fast and tight until your legs shook and your breath came in ragged pants.

You could feel him everywhere—the scrape of his jeans against your thighs, the press of his belt buckle into your spine, the way his cock stretched you open with every deep, rolling thrust. The angle had your toes curling, your nails scratching at the record bin’s surface as Eddie’s rhythm faltered, his hips stuttering against your ass. “Gonna come,” he warned, his voice fraying at the edges, and his fingers on your clit pressed harder. “Take it—take it, sweetheart—”

The orgasm hit you like a live wire, sharp and electric, and Eddie’s name tore from your throat as you arched back into him. He followed with a choked groan, his hips slamming forward one last time as he spilled inside you, his forehead dropping to your shoulder with a shuddering exhale. For a moment, the only sounds were your mingled panting and the rain’s steady drumbeat against the glass.

Eddie’s hands gentled first—his grip on your stomach loosening, his fingers sliding away from your clit to stroke idle circles on your hip instead. He pressed a lazy kiss to the hinge of your jaw, his lips curving into a smirk when you shivered. “Told you,” he murmured, his voice still rough but edged with smug satisfaction. “Side by side’s the best.”

The record bin groaned in protest as Eddie leaned his full weight against it, his breath still ragged against your skin. His fingers trailed lazily down your spine, tracing the dip of your waist before settling possessively on your hip. "So," he drawled, his voice still thick with satisfaction, "still think I'm ridiculous?"

You snorted, twisting just enough to elbow him in the ribs—gently, because your limbs still felt like jelly. "You're *worse* than ridiculous. You're a menace." The words lacked any real bite, especially when Eddie just grinned and pressed another kiss to your shoulder, his teeth grazing the spot he'd marked earlier.

The store’s fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering slightly as the storm outside rattled the power lines. Rain still streaked the windows, blurring the parking lot into a watercolor smear of asphalt and neon. Eddie’s hands lingered as you straightened your clothes, his fingers catching the hem of your shirt to tug you back against him. "Where do you think you're going?" he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

"You have *work*," you reminded him, nodding toward the still-open front door. The Iron Maiden kid had long since fled, but the bell jingled ominously in the wind. "And I have a Bowie bootleg to steal."

Eddie gasped, clutching his chest like you'd shot him. "After all we've shared?" he said, voice dripping with mock horror. "The betrayal." But he was already reaching past you, snagging the record from where it had miraculously survived the... *activity* against the bin. He flipped it over in his hands, studying the worn sleeve with exaggerated scrutiny. "Hmm. This one’s got a scratch on track three. Can't sell damaged merchandise." He winked as he tucked it into your bag. "Employee discount."

“I will see you later?” Eddie asked, his fingers lingering on your waist as you stepped back, his rings catching the dim light. The smirk he wore was softer now, almost hesitant—like he already knew the answer but wanted to hear it anyway. You rolled your eyes, but your fingers brushed his wrist as you adjusted the strap of your bag, lingering just a second too long. “Obviously,” you said, like it was the dumbest question in the world.

[26wh57]

What should I write? Pt 2

Eddie x steve x reader

Eddie x Steve 

Billy Hargrave x stepsister reader / mayfield

Billy Hargrove x gf! Toxic relationship reader

Jim hopper x wife reader

Jim Hopper x age gap reader

Eddie Munson x Henderson reader

Eddie Munson x Harrington reader

Eddie Munson x gf reader

Steve Harrington x buyers reader

Steven Harrington x Wheeler reader

Steve Harrington x Sinclair reader

Voting ended onMay 27

[26wh57]

What should i right? Pt 1

Gator Tillman x gf/reader

Gator Tillman x ex girlfriend reader

Gator Tillman x arrange marriage reader 

Gator Tillman x pregnant reader

Steve Harrington x gf reader

Steve Harrington x wife reader

Steve Harrington x powers! Hopper reader

Steve Harrington x hopper reader 

Steve Harrington x Henderson reader

Steve Harrington x Sinclair reader

Steven Harrington x Wheeler reader

Steve Harrington x buyers reader

Voting ended onMay 30

[stranger-marauders]

shattered

seventeen: the episode

chapter summary: Kate, Steve, Robin, Nancy, Dustin, Lucas, and Max find a potential clue in the Creel house.

chapter warnings: language, ptsd-like symptoms, canon-typical violence

word count: 3.7k

series masterlist | masterlist

KATE THOUGHT THAT she and Robin must have been searching for clues for hours, but they had yet to find anything inside of the Creel House that alerted them of Vecna’s presence. Whenever the sun peaked just below the horizon and daylight began to dim, the ceiling fixtures in the house began to light up, blinking almost as they all stood in front of the one on the downstairs level.

Max, Nancy, and Lucas had been the one to find the chandelier downstairs. Whenever Lucas ran around the house to find everyone, the four on the upstairs level swiftly joined Nancy and Max to find the light blinking. Kate, Nancy, Robin, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Steve all stood around the chandelier downstairs, now watching it carefully.

“It’s like those damn Christmas lights,” Kate said, more specifically to Nancy even though she didn’t turn her head toward her.

“The Christmas lights?” Robin asked softly, whispering to her.

“Yeah, when Will was in the Upside Down, the lights… came to life,” Nancy explained as Kate investigated the lights above them. She was trying to figure out if they were blinking something in Morse code, similarly to the one time that Will had spoken to them through Morse code whenever he was possessed by the Mind Flayer. Of course, nothing came of it.

“Vecna’s here. In this house,” Lucas said, turning to the rest of the group. “Just on the other side.”

When the chandelier light finally stopped pulsing and shut off entirely, tension immediately filled the air. Other than their flashlights, they were left in complete darkness.

“I think he just left the room,” Robin said as-a-matter-of-factly.

Max looked around the room, almost as if she was waiting for him to appear. “Did he hear us?”

Steve turned to her. “Can he see us?”

“Headphones,” Lucas whispered to Max, and she quickly put her headphones over her ears, preparing herself to listen to “Running Up That Hill” for the thousandth time that day.

“Wait, wait,” Nancy said, an idea striking her. “Everyone, turn off your flashlights and spread out.”

“We’re not gonna be able to see if we turn off our flash… lights,” Steve said, although he was completely ignored as everyone walked off in different directions.

Kate clicked hers off, only shrugging when he gave her a confused look. “You coming or what?”

He gave her a concerned look for only a second before he clicked his off and followed behind her. “Jesus Christ.” They’d both gone upstairs to look for any signs of Vecna, and Kate explained what she assumed was Nancy’s thought process to him. “Okay, so, I think she’s trying to see if we can find where Vecna is based on the flashlights. Based on what we’ve seen before, the flashlights should light up even if they’re not on if we find him. I have no idea how it actually works, but that’s why Joyce put up those Christmas lights in her house. She found a way to talk to Will through the lights. So basically, if something’s in the Upside Down, the lights in the same place should blink in our world.” She paused for a second, trying to think of a time where he could have seen such an event. “You’ve seen it before. That’s why those Christmas lights lit up at Joyce’s whenever we tried killing the Demogorgon a couple years ago. Remember that?”

Steve hesitated, partially because he still didn’t quite understand what she was saying. “Wait a sec. What about the lights that came on afterward? After part of it was sizzling in the beartrap?”

She took a deep breath, still holding her flashlight upright to try and locate Vecna. “That was Joyce and, uh… and my dad. They were actually cutting through the house while we were inside. That’s why they came on like that.”

“Oh.” Steve only watched her carefully as she remained focused on the task at hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, turning to look at him for only a second. “A little on edge, but that’s normal.” He hesitated to speak again. “You know, I, uh… I don’t know how he picks his victims, but you know what happens to them?”

“They get to play a little game of ‘snap all your limbs out of place’ and die?”

Steve chuckled uneasily. “Yeah, uh… no. They all have these… these vision. They’re kinda like your episodes.”

The color drained from her face, any sign of mirth immediately disappearing. “What?”

“Yeah, I know. I know, please don’t… please don’t freak out, okay? I’m only telling you because I think you deserve to know.”

“But I’ve been having those for, like… a year and a half now, and I—” I’m not dead. “Maybe they’re different? Mine have to be different, right?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know, just… If you see some big, scary ass grandfather clock the next time you have one, can you please let me know? I don’t want any repeats after Max.”

She nodded. “Y–Yeah, sure. Sure.” She paused, almost scoffing. “You need to know my favorite song too?”

“Already got that covered.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together. “Oh yeah? What is it, then?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, you’ve got, like, five of ‘em.”

“And they are…”

“In no particular order, uh… ‘Landslide,’ ‘Silver Springs,’ ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love,’ and ‘Love of My Life.’ Like, especially that one.”

She was nearly stunned he named all of those considering he could barely name songs that he liked. “That’s four.”

He gave her a funny look before throwing his head back and chuckling. “Jesus, how could I forget ‘I Want to Break Free?’ I’ve heard that song, like, a thousand times.”

“Shut up, you know you like it too,” she said, trying to hide her smile. Kate had no idea how he’d still been able to keep track of all of that. “I mean, I like ‘Modern Love’ too. And ‘Gold Dust Woman.’ Oh, and—”

“Let me guess, literally anything by Stevie Nicks? Or Queen? Anything by either of them at all ever?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was gonna actually say ‘Wish You Were Here,’ but fine. Be like that.”

“Oh shit, d’you mean the Pink Floyd ‘Wish You Were Here’ or the Christine McVie one?”

“I’m sorry, how the fuck do you know who she is?” she asked, eyes wide in bewilderment.

“Who, Christine McVie?” Whenever she nodded, he shrugged. “She’s in your favorite band, Kathy. Of course I know who Christine McVie is.”

“No, there’s no way, because I only pushed the songs that Stevie wrote on you, not the Christine ones. Those ones are, like, depressing as fuck. Like, seriously, all of them, okay?” She paused. “Also, to answer your question, both are good. Really good, actually.”

“Good to know.”

“But seriously, how the fuck do you know who that is? How did you even know that was a Fleetwood Mac song? I mean, that wasn’t even released as a single!”

He shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know. I–I guess you could say that I, uh… I’ve started paying more attention to the radio. Heard something by them a while back a–and I went and bought a cassette for it, you know? I was… supporting… artists, or whatever. Like you always used to say.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. As much as she had said that to him in the past, he had never listened to her because she would just keep her own cassettes in his car. “You’ve never bought a cassette for yourself once in your goddamn life.”

He gave her a funny look for a moment. After Kate had dumped him and he’d heard “Hold Me” on the last cassette that she’d made him, Steve, obviously, had impulsively bought Fleetwood Mac’s entire discography to remind himself of her, but it wasn’t like he could say that. “Well, I mean, I… I–I just thought I–I’d buy some tapes of my own, you know? So I… You know, so I still had some stuff to choose from.”

With that, she’d understood him. Whenever she’d gone away to school, Steve had given her most of her cassettes to take with her, which had nearly left him without any of his own to have loaded in the glovebox.

“So, just… just to be clear,” Kate said, almost in disbelief, “you’re a Fleetwood Mac fan now?”

“Yeah, totally,” he said, smiling. “I, uh… I guess I finally get why you’re so crazy over ‘em. They’re really great.”

“You saw them with me twice, Steven, how did you not see it then?” she asked, laughing in disbelief.

“I mean, to be completely fair, I wasn’t focused on the music back then. I was kinda… distracted by someone else.” 

She scratched the back of her neck somewhat sheepishly. Damn. “Uh—Well, i–it’s good to know that you’re a Fleetwood Mac fan now. I still thought your favorite song would be ‘Old Time Rock and Roll,’ which would be extremely lame.” “Okay, that is not lame,” he said pointedly. 

Kate’s mouth fell open in shock as she laughed. “Oh my God, it is still ‘Old Time Rock and Roll!’”

Steve could feel his face flush. “That is a great part of a great movie, okay?”

“That movie being Risky Business, which is not great, just so you know.”

He scoffed. “Whatever. You’re the one that’s in love with Tom Cruise.”

“Are you sure?” Kate asked, unconvinced considering he’d nearly made it his life goal to be the real-life Joel Goodsen after that movie had come out.

“Yes! The only reason why I went to go see that movie is because you wanted to go so damn bad. I would have never gone to see it if it wasn’t for you.”

“That’s because I didn’t realize it was a porno with a shitty plot, Steve!”

“And you know what? You can blame yourself for that. I enjoyed it.”

She stifled a laugh. “Of course you did. Only a good movie if it’s got boobs in it, right?”

“Woah, that is not what I said,” he explained defensively. “All I’m saying is that Tom Cruise had a great idea. I think he’s genius, actually.”

“Of course, you would think that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She grinned for a second. “Just that you… would be the one to consider such a business endeavor as upper class pimping.” “No, I just know how to admire great work.” “You’re such a dork.”

He scoffed. “You are such a dork—”

“I got him!” Robin shouted from another room. Steve and Kate only exchanged glances for a second before running in the direction of her voice. “Got him!”

Whenever they found her holding her flashlight upright in the middle of one of the rooms downstairs, she spoke again, almost excited. “I got him!” The light, however, quickly gave out again, and Robin became much less enthusiastic. “I… I had him.” Steve’s flashlight began to self-illuminate which made him stand up a bit straighter. “Oh, woah.” He started following the light as it flickered in an attempt to follow Vecna’s path. “Oh, I think he’s moving. He’s moving!”

The rest of the group followed behind Steve as he continued to shine his flashlight upright, leading them up the stairs before it gave out when they got to the top.

“Shit, I lost him.”

“No, you didn’t,” Max said before walking toward the wall and opening the door that led to the attic. Whenever she opened it, a light appeared to shine from inside the corridor and illuminated the staircase within eerily. Max looked back at the group before she opened the door and, without much hesitation, walked up the stairs to the attic without a word.

Steve and Kate exchanged glances as they stood at the bottom of the stairs, then both followed Max to the attic. Robin peered around the corner of the doorframe, a slight panic lacing her voice before following them. “It’s an attic. Of course it’s an attic.” Dustin stood at the bottom of the stairs hesitantly, watching as everyone went up the staircase without question. “Hold up, guys. What if he's leading us into a trap?” When no response came from anyone in the group, he realized he would be left alone if he didn’t join them. “Shit.” Whenever they all reached the attic, they found there was a lightbulb that pulsed brightly, its light shining brightly despite no one turning on the bulb. Dustin’s flashlight, which was pointed in its direction, also brightened and twinkled in unison with the pull string light above them.

“Flashlights.”

Everyone held their flashlights up in the direction of the lightbulb, holding them vertically in their hands.

“Okay, what’s happening?” Steve asked, his palms sweaty as he held the flashlight.

The radiance of the attic’s pull string bulb seemed to grow more intense with each passing second, the light beginning to shine so bright it started to burn Kate’s eyes. Before she could comment on it, however, the glass of Kate’s flashlight popped in her face, then Steve’s and Robin’s and the rest of the group’s faces as they gasped and screamed at the sounds of it breaking. Whenever the pull string lightbulb shattered, the seven of them were left in complete darkness.

“What… the hell… was that?” Kate asked, wiping her face carefully to clear it of any potential shards of glass.

“You guys okay?” Steve asked as his eyes readjusted to the darkness.

“Yeah, let’s just… get out of here,” Nancy said cautiously. “I think we’ve done enough for one day.”

No one argued with her before hastily shuffling out of the attic and out of the Creel house, at least for the time being.

When they had all gotten back to the Wheeler’s house, Steve had decided he needed to go home. He had been wearing the same clothes for three days, and that was almost less pressing than the state of his hair. Even though he knew the buzzcut was off the table, he still wanted to wash his hair after the cobweb incident. He owed himself that much, at least.

He had offered to take anyone else home who felt like they needed a break. To anyone who wanted to sleep in their own bed for the night instead of on the floor, maybe shower, or even change their clothes for the first time in days. Only Robin had taken him up on his offer; Lucas, Dustin, and Max still wanted to stay with each other and Nancy told them they could still stay in the basement if they chose to. That, however, left one person in their group that didn’t have a home to go back to.

Steve had offered for Kate to go back to his house and stay with him. He didn’t think that was such a crazy thing to suggest. Considering how many times Kate had stayed at his house before they had gotten together with and without his parents there, he didn’t think there was anything wrong with asking her to stay with him now. It was just for a night, anyway. A night where she got to sleep in a queen-sized bed and take a hot shower. He didn’t think the idea was so crazy until Kate looked at him as if he had two heads. Only then did he start to question his line of thinking about the situation.

Kate had told him she would think about his offer on the car ride back to Nancy’s, but realistically she had already decided on what she wanted to do whenever he’d first asked her. Of course she wanted to go back to Steve’s house with him. She’d be stupid not to want to go with him, especially if they were going to be alone. If it had been a year ago, she would have been chomping at the bit for the invitation, especially because that was the only time she could guarantee that they were actually alone. Now, though, she thought that the trip would just be inappropriate despite his innocent invitation. With the kiss she thought they had almost shared the night before in mind, she didn’t know if it was a good idea. Not now. Not after everything they had gone through. The last thing they needed to do was further complicate things. She didn’t even know if it was a good idea for everyone to split up with everything going on in the first place.

Her innumerable thoughts about the situation seemed to consume her until Nancy pulled her car into her driveway, nearing the basement door. After Steve helped her out of the trunk, they both stood in the Wheelers’ driveway. 

“So, what’ll it be?” Steve asked. Despite his nonchalant tone, he looked at her pleadingly which only made butterflies flutter in her stomach.

“I don’t know,” she said softly, almost unsure. “Don’t you think I should probably stay with Nance and the kids? You know, just in case something happens?”

“I think if you do that, you’ll sleep on the floor again.”

She shrugged. “It’s not a big deal if I do. Worst case scenario, my body starts aching and I threaten the kids to give it up for one of their elders.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. I know you. You’re just gonna sleep on the floor again for the third night in a row.”

“Plan B is threaten the kids, remember?”

He gave her an unconvinced look as he chuckled. “So you’re telling me you’d rather sleep on the floor or a nasty couch if you’re lucky in a fourteen-year-old boy’s basement than sleep in a nice bed back at my place? You’re crazy.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

“Come on, Kathy. It won’t—I won’t… It’ll be fine. Seriously. It’s either me or those three dipshits, and I’m pretty sure you getting your own bed for the night is the much better option.”

Kate’s eyes followed in the direction that he’d nodded his head to; Dustin, Lucas, and Max, who were all bickering about something she couldn’t quite pick up on. Whenever she met Steve’s eyes again, which were practically begging for her to come back with him—goddamn puppy dog eyes—she finally caved.

“Fine. Let me go get my bag.”

When he gave a dumbfounded smile in repsonse, Robin walked up to him from behind and chuckled. “Don’t forget that if anything good happens, you have to wrap it before you—”

“Shut up.”

Max, Dustin, and Lucas had decided to stay in Mike’s basement together again.

Nancy hadn’t minded housing the three kids again. Max hadn’t wanted to go home to an empty trailer or to her mother drinking away her sorrows on the couch, and Dustin and Lucas didn’t want to leave her alone in the basement. Besides, they had to protect Max, and what better way to do that than to continue to camp out with her in Mike’s basement? Because of that, Nancy had made an agreement to take Dustin and Max home in the morning to change and shower while Lucas ran next door to his place to get ready for the day.

Despite the three of them still sharing the basement with one another, they couldn’t help but feel the noticeable absence of Steve, Kate, and Robin. While at first they’d shared excitement whenever half of them had decided to leave for the night, meaning the three of them would most likely get better sleep, now it seemed eerily quiet. Their night also became much less entertaining without Steve and Kate there to analyze. That only meant they could now only speculate on what the two of them were doing alone in his house.

“What do you think they’re… doing?” Lucas asked Dustin and Max.

Dustin shrugged. “Probably each other by now, considering their previous history.”

“That’s actually disgusting,” Max replied, the expression on her face matching her equally disgusted tone. “There’s no way, I mean… Kate dumped him forever ago. She wouldn’t stoop that low again.”

“I’m sorry, did you not see the two of them this morning?” Dustin asked, motioning to the remnants of the palette that they’d made together the night before. “Also, like, any other time they’ve interacted in the past couple of days?”

“I mean, yeah, but I don’t think she’d actually do anything about it,” Max replied. “I told you guys last night: I don’t think she’s actually gonna get back with him again.”

“Then why did she go back with him to his house? Alone, I might add?”

“I don’t know, Dustin, maybe she wanted to sleep in an actual bed or something!”

“I don’t know, guys, I think we’re reading too much into this,” Lucas said simply. “I mean, think about it. Ever since we’ve met them, they’ve always been weird. Like, weird enough for us to pick up on their weirdness.”

“That’s why I’m telling you that come tomorrow morning, the two of them will be back together. Just watch,” Dustin said confidently. “Steve can win her over again. I’m sure of it.”

“Why you have such confidence in him I’ll never know,” Max replied. “If that happens, I’ll be sending her my regrets.”

“Your regrets?”

“Obviously,” she replied. “I mean, at this point, I just feel bad for her.”

Both Dustin and Lucas turned to give her an odd look. 

“You feel bad for her?”

“Why?”

“Well, I–I mean, yeah, I feel bad for her!” Max explained. “I mean, if I was with a guy like Steve for as long as Kate was, that would already make me want to throw up, but if she’s still actually liked him this entire time and dumped him for absolutely no reason, then she’s got problems.”

“No she doesn’t,” Dustin said in defense of the older boy. “Steve’s awesome. She shouldn’t have even broken up with him in the first place.” “Says you! Maybe he was being annoying and she—”

“He was just trying to—”

“Why are we arguing about this!” Lucas interjected, cutting off their squabbling. Whenever they both turned to look at him with a somewhat surprised look on their faces, he sighed. “Look, we can theorize all we want about their… relationship, or lackthereof. Maybe they’re gonna get back together, or maybe they won’t. I don’t know, but the only thing we can say confidently is that they’re both weird, okay? Both of them. There’s no point in arguing about the fact that they’re just weirdos.”

Dustin nodded conclusively. “Exactly. They’re both just… weirdos.”

After Steve and Kate had dropped Robin off at her place, they found that there hadn’t been much to talk about on the drive to his house.

Steve had been kind enough to stop at Hardee’s so they could both get a bite to eat. As kind as Nancy’s parents had been to let them all stay in their basement for as long as they had, Steve and Kate both agreed that they didn’t want to stay for dinner and overextend their welcome. Steve had initially planned to cook for her with the stuff he had at the house, but whenever she’d made a comment about how she couldn’t believe they’d replaced the Burger Chef with a Hardee’s when they’d passed it and that she’d never actually gone to one, Steve immediately offered to take her on his treat. At least that way he didn’t have to worry about cleaning up his kitchen.

“You know, this is actually pretty good,” Kate said, stealing another fry from the bag. “I’m pleasantly surprised.”

“Yeah, I’m glad they’re not open too late. I’d just get this every time I have to close at work instead of go home and cook something.”

“Don’t you get off at, like, midnight?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly why I don’t wanna cook, okay? I don’t wanna spend an hour making the kitchen look spotless. I just wanna grab something to eat and go to bed.”

She chortled. “Oh my God, I’m the worst about that. Like, especially on the weekends. By the time I’m done with that third shift I’m fucking starving. There’s no way I’m gonna cook something for myself after all that. I’m always, like, exhausted.”

“Wait, hold on a sec, third?” Steve asked. “How’s that even possible? Or legal? I mean, are you guys even open that long?”

Kate shook her head. “No, no, no, that’s three shifts split between two jobs. I work a double in the morning and then I close up at the bookstore. It’s really not that bad, it just tires me out by the end of the night.”

“You have two jobs? Why didn’t you—?” He stopped himself before he asked why she didn’t tell him. She didn’t have to tell him anything anymore if she didn’t want to, especially not about her financial situation. “What’s… What’s your other job?”

“How don’t you—?” Kate cut herself off. Of course he didn’t know abuot that. She’d only started working at the diner a couple of months ago. Since the start of the semester, actually, which automatically meant he wouldn’t know about it unless Robin or Nancy had told him. “The bookstore job wasn’t cutting it. All of the flights to California kinda killed my savings, so I picked up a job waiting tables at a diner near my place.”

“You? Waiting tables?” Steve asked incredulously. “No way.”

“Oh, yeah, way.” Kate sighed. “It… I make good money. The tips are good.”

“And, uh… how’s it other than that?”

“It’s terrible,” she whined, which made him chuckle. “I’ve thought about leaving so many times, but I’m scared I won’t make as much money at other restaurants. I mean, people can be such assholes. I have so many horror stories at this point.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes!” Kate said somewhat loudly. “Absolute horror stories, okay? You know how many people I’ve had tell me I’m wasting my time in school just because I’m pretty? That’s if I’m lucky, really, because other times they comment about how hot my body is or they just tell me it’s a shame I’m not letting some rich guy off of Wall Street take care of me. And do you know how many guys have flirted with me in front of their wives? It’s fucking nasty! And people are so fucking judgy. Like, I’m just trying to afford to eat at this point. It’s not my fault if I flirt back just to make a couple bucks.” Whenever she saw Steve’s smirk out of the corner of her eye, she sighed. “You know, I think too many of these people realize I only get paid if I’m not a bitch to them. Like, the only reason I haven’t lost my shit yet is because half of them tip well.”

Steve chuckled. While he did think she was pretty, Kate had always wanted to go away to school. Besides, she hadn’t ever been the type to sit around and let someone else provide for her. He’d learned that the hard way after her father had died. Kate, obviously, would rather suffer than receive help from anyone, and that was something he’d come to accept.

“Okay, first off, I can’t even imagine you as a waitress,” he said. “Like, seriously. I have to see this at least once. I mean, you being forced to be nice to people you don’t like? That sounds hilarious.”

“It’s fucking awful. I refuse to let you see that side of me.”

“Oh, what, you being nice to me for once?”

“No, because I’m not gonna flirt with you for your money. That’s just mean.”

“I mean, if a couple bucks is all it would take, sounds worth it to me.”

Her face flushed. “Steven, I mean it, you’re never gonna see me at work. Never.”

“Mm. We’ll see.”

She tried to hide her smile. The thought of Steve in that diner specifically sitting in her section made her face flush. Even if she was completely against the idea, she knew that somehow he would most likely be the best table she’d ever have. Of course, she already knew what he’d order. Depending on the time of day, he’d most likely order a cheeseburger with a side of fries, no pickles, and he’d get both acherry  coke and a chocolate milkshake if he knew it would help her sales. Despite his small tab, he’d give her an astronomical tip, one that she would try to refuse but he wouldn’t let her. He’d probably make a little quip about it and say it was for the flirting, but she’d really know that he was just trying to help despite his miniscule income. Before she could say anything else, the song that played faintly in the background caught her attention. Kate instinctually turned up the volume knob on the radio whenever she heard the introduction to “Rock Me, Amadeus.” At least this was a song she knew already.

“You like this song?” Steve asked, tapping his fingers nervously against the steering wheel to the beat. “That kinda surprises me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it’s kinda tacky, don’t you think?”

“How so?” Kate asked, her eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.

He turned up the volume knob again as he began to sing along to the lyrics whenever it got to the second verse. “A rock superstar, You’re so popular, You ride an X-19, That guy’s got flair—”

Steve stopped whenever Kate started giggling through words. “Oh my God, no, that’s not… Tho–Those aren’t the words.”

“What d’you mean? That’s exactly what the words are!”

“Steven, the song is in German.”

“What?”

She laughed even harder. “It’s German! All the words are German. Like, ninety-nine percent of the song is in the German language.”

“You’re joking.”

“I swear to God, I’m not. Just listen.”

He listened to the third verse as it started to play, his version of the lyrics still playing in his head as she mumbled the supposed German lyrics. It wasn’t until he heard “no plastic money anymore” that he realized all of the other words were not English. “Oh.”

Kate laughed again, almost crying. “Oh my God, that’s awesome.”

Whenever he didn’t reply, it fell silent again, and Kate turned down the radio just enough to where the music barely buzzed. She figured he now most likely had Falco-related trauma, so she wouldn’t subject him to any more of that. In hindsight, she couldn’t help but feel bad that she laughed so hard. She didn’t mean to embarrass him, she just thought it was funny. Cute, rather. All of the songs that she liked with other bits of foreign languages sprinkled into its lyrics started to run through her mind: what did he think of “Eyes Without a Face?” “Michelle?” “Las Palabras de Amor?” She wanted to hear him sing every song with another language featured within it just for her own enjoyment.

Kate finally looked over at him in the driver’s seat to find that he had already completely engrossed himself again with the road in front of him. She smiled for half a second before pressing her lips together. “You know, I can’t believe you made it two days without redoing your hair completely.”

“What?”

She stifled a laugh. “Seriously. You survived two whole days and two whole nights without being able to redo it. I’m really proud of you, Steven. This is progress.”

“You’re acting like I have a problem.”

“I mean, you do, but it’s okay.”

“I have a routine, okay?” he said, running his hand overtop of his hair protectively. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together in disbelief. “You seriously think I don’t know the process by now?”

“I know you don’t know the process. Only person that knows is Henderson.”

She chuckled. “So you mean to tell me you think that I don’t know about the Farrah Fawcett spray?”

With that, Steve almost wrecked the car as he slammed on breaks, swerving slightly. “How do you know about? Did Henderson tell you? I’m gonna—”

Whenever she laughed again, he cut himself off. “Steve, I used to practically live at your house. Of course I know about the Farrah Fawcett spray. I’ve known since, like, the eighth grade. I just thought it was one of those things we didn’t talk about but you knew I knew.”

“There’s never been anything we didn’t talk about but I knew you knew. Unless…” Steve said, trailing off his sentence. “What… What else do you secretly know about me?”

“Well,” she said uneasily, “I know you do this thing when you’re about to cry and you pinch your nose so don’t. I know you drink dark liquor when you’re sad and beer when you wanna have a good time, and I… I–I know about all the Playboys you have hidden at the bottom of your nightstand. Oh my God, and I know where you put your dirty socks after you—!”

“Okay, stop, I don’t wanna know anything else,” he said somewhat concernedly. 

She shrugged. “You’re lucky the only thing I knew about in the eighth grade was the Farrah Fawcett spray. If I would’ve found those socks and the magazines with all the blondes with nice racks back then, you would’ve been done.”

He tapped his hand on the steering wheel, gripping it tighter. So much for that. “Yeah, well, I–I don’t use Farrah Fawcett anymore, okay? They discontinued all that shit because, apparently, I’m the only one that actually bought any of it.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to hide her laughter once again. “That’s so fucking sad.”

“I know! She was bought out by McGregor and now I have to use—” Whenever he turned to look at her more than excited face, he sighed. “You were being sarcastic.” 

“No, I—!”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna give you any more ammo tonight.”

“No, please, now I have to know!” she said as she fought giggles. “I mean, what do you do now? Use Aquanet or something?”

His chuckle before he spoke juxtaposed his tone. “I am not telling you.” 

She sighed sarcastically, trying to sound disappointed. “Damn. Guess I’m just gonna have to find it out for myself. Again. Among other things.”

“No, you’re not gonna figure out shit, okay? And stop snooping through my shit!”

“I’m not snooping, okay? It always happens whenever I’m looking for something completely normal like shampoo or a t-shirt or something, and then bam! I find out something about you I never wanted to know in the first place!”

“You should’ve just asked!” he said pointedly. “Which is… exactly what you’re gonna do this time, right?”

“Then how would I confirm you’re an Aquanet user, Steven?” Whenever he opened his mouth to speak again, she chuckled. “I can’t believe you thought I actually didn’t know about any of that shit. That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut it.”

Whenever they’d finally arrived at his house, carefully making their way inside, Kate decided it was more than time to take a shower.

Kate hadn’t used a good shower since she’d gone back to school that spring semester. The showers in her dorm barely worked, the water heaters magically working every once in a blue moon for only a few minutes or so. Now that she was using Steve’s, though, she thought she could stay in there forever as the hot water seeped into her aching bones and muscles. It wasn’t like he was paying the water bill.

She hadn’t realized she’d actually been taking forever until Steve knocked lightly at the door, making her jump. “Hey, Kathy? You drown in there?”

Shit.

“I’ll be out in a sec!” she shouted, urgently trying to rinse the conditioner of Steve’s she’d borrowed out of her hair.

Once she’d dried off a bit and wrung her hair out a few times, she threw on the oversized t-shirt and old Hawkins High gym shorts that Steve had essentially forced her to have—he’d said something along the lines of “just take my goddamn clothes, Kathy,” and there hadn’t been much point to argue with him after that. 

She hadn’t been paying too much attention to her surroundings as she brushed through her hair until she saw something behind her in the mirror, making her gasp and turn around to face it.

Eleven.

This version of her sister looked different. While she still looked uncannily like El, her head was shaven and blood trickled down her nostrils, her outfit soaked with blood. She couldn’t tell whose blood her sister was doused in, whether it be her own or someone else’s. She knew that whatever this was it couldn’t have been real: El hadn’t had her powers since the Fourth of July.

“What the hell?” she muttered to herself, trying to catch her breath.

“Why did you let them take me?” El finally asked her. “You left me behind.”

Kate rapidly shook her head as she put her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “No, Ellie, no, I–I’m still looking for you, I promise.”

“No.” El didn’t move, only staring at her. “You. Left. Me.”

“No, I didn’t—!”

“You left me to die.”

Kate still shook her head. “Ellie, no, listen to me, I… I promise, I’m still here. I–I’m going to be here. I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you.” “Just like you didn’t let anything bad happen to me, kid?”

Kate gasped, turning around again as she looked her father up and down. Jim Hopper stood in front of her again like a day hadn’t passed since his untimely death. He was even wearing the same floral shirt and jeans he’d been wearing before he’d gone down to the Russian base. Before he’d been blown up. The only difference was now he was covered in blood.

Seeing her father now only made her heart race. He’s not real, he’s not real, he’s not real. She took a step back, her hands gripped on the bathroom counter behind her. She shook her head rapidly as tears brewed in her eyes. “You’re… You’re not here. Get out of my head.”

“Come on, kid. Just admit you could’ve stopped this. All of this.”

“Get out of my fucking head!”

“What about me?”

Kate turned her head once again and was met with Steve. Not you, too. He looked exactly the same as he had just only an hour ago, the same polo and messy hair from three days’ neglect. That was the only reason she’d hesitated. Despite looking the same, he was covered in blood, his eyes widened in fear.

She began to sob and shake her head as she took a step toward him, grazing his arm with her hand. He felt so real she could hardly deny he wasn’t. “No, no, no, no, no, you–you’re okay.”

“Okay? You broke my heart, Kathy. You’re gonna get me killed and you don’t even know it yet.”

“N–No, no, no, you’re fine. You’re fine. You’re okay.” Whenever his eyes grew wider with sorrow, almost pity-like, she continued to ramble. “No, please, ju–just listen to me. Please. That’s why I did all this, okay? I did it—I did it to protect you, I promise. I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I swear. That’s why I—”

“That’s why you what?” he asked softly, almost as if he were trying to understand what she was saying. He cupped her face with his hand, grazing his thumb across her jawline. “That’s why you killed all of us?”

She gave him a confused look, her eyes still misty as she struggled to breathe properly. “What the hell’re you—”

Whenever she looked Steve in the eyes again, she found they were now a pale blue rather than their typical amber shade. She gasped again and looked behind her to find El and her father to find them on the floor, their limbs contorted and their eyes sucked back into their skulls.

Dead. 

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Steve?” she called, putting a hand to his face. “Steve, wake up. No, come on, stay with me, just… Goddammit, please!”

She tried anything to wake him up. She shook him, touched his face, screamed, but it didn’t matter. It hadn’t been enough to save Max, so why would it save him? He slowly began to levitate in the air as she attempted but failed to wake him from Vecna’s curse. She took another step back, trying her best to tug at his feet to bring him back to the floor. She couldn’t give up now. His life was on the line. 

It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real. 

Kate had stopped telling herself that whenever his limbs began to snap one by one, the crunch of all of his bones enough to make her sick. She couldn’t help but watch now the very mess that she had created. It was her fault that he had suffered. It was her fault that he had been cursed. It was her fault that he was dead. She released a blood curdling scream as she sobbed. She was going to watch him die and there was nothing she could do about it.

His eyes began to bleed as he spoke, nearly bursting because of the pressure they were receiving. “You did this.”

Kate took a step back and squeezed her eyes shut to avoid seeing any more than what she already had, but that had only led to her slipping on the slick tile floor of the bathroom. Thank God, she thought. Whenever she opened her eyes, however, she knew she hadn’t been so lucky. She wasn’t on the tile floor of the bathroom anymore, but somewhere else entirely. 

Hawkins Lab.

She tried to stand up again, but she was already significantly weakened. She grazed the left side of her waist only to find her hand caked with blood. Kate tried to sit up again before they came for her, to try and escape before she was nothing but a late night snack, but it was no use. Dragging herself away proved useless against the multiple Demodogs that came for her now. Without her father to shoot them away or Bob to sacrifice himself for her, the creatures were already biting, tearing, shredding her skin into bits and pieces. 

“Get off of me!” she shouted, trying to shove them off of her as she sobbed, but the Demodogs were stronger. One of them had already pinned her down and had began to tear into her skin more and more until—

“Kathy!”

That was when she was pulled back to reality without warning, finding that she still only lay on Steve’s bathroom floor. She hadn’t stopped sobbing yet, barely comprehending that Steve had somehow found his way inside of the previously locked bathroom and now sat on the floor with her as he held her as best he could. She couldn’t even begin to try and fight him. She couldn’t find it within her to care. At least he was alive—that was all that mattered.

“Hey, hey, hey, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he said, pulling her closer to him whenever she’d finally come to. “I’m here, Kathy, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

She only buried her face deeper into the crook of his neck as she sobbed.

You’re okay.

next chapter

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[stranger-marauders]

shattered

sixteen: the creel house

chapter summary: Steve and Kate deal with the consequences of the night before while searching the Creel house for clues about Vecna.

chapter warnings: language, slight angst

word count: 5.9k

series masterlist | masterlist

KATE DIDN’T THINK she had slept as well as she had that night in weeks despite sleeping on the floor.

She wasn’t one for heavy sleeping nowadays, especially if there were other people around. Maybe it had just been pure exhaustion that had provided her such an ability that night. Even though she could hear voices faintly around her, she couldn’t tell who was speaking. Part of her thought that she could stay asleep if she simply ignored them long enough. As long as none of them said anything too jarring, she could have maybe drifted back off.

“Hey, lovebirds, get up.”

With that, Kate quickly shot up from her comatose state, more confused than anything. It wasn’t until she sat up that she realized Dustin had been speaking, more specifically to her and Steve.

The previous night’s events very suddenly came back to her. Steve had said he would stay up with her until her shift watching Max had ended, but he had started falling asleep on her shoulder around four in the morning. Once Robin got up and started reading through more articles about the Creels, Kate and Steve had opted to make a palette on the floor, stacking two blankets as a makeshift comforter. After they’d both fallen asleep next to each other, not even touching underneath their shared blankets, Steve had somehow gotten his arms around her and she had been using him as a pillow, their legs intertwined as well as their hands. 

Despite Kate sitting up, Steve hadn’t let go of her. Instead, his arms just slid down and pooled around her waist.

Awkward.

She quickly pulled Steve off of her, trying to get up as quickly as possible so she could be quite literally anywhere else. Her near careless shove of him had finally been the action to wake Steve up, making him jump at the sudden movement. He quickly became coherent whenever he realized Dustin was still staring at him, almost frighteningly similar to how his own mother would stare at him whenever he’d done something wrong as a child.

“Steve, get up!”

“All right, Jesus, Henderson!” he shouted back at him as he pulled himself off the ground drudgingly, almost as if he was still half-asleep.

He finally met Dustin’s gaze again whenever he’d gotten himself straightened out by running his hands through his hair. Dustin now only stared at him with a pointed expression, one that meant he was waiting for an explanation for what he’d just seen. 

Steve almost couldn’t blame him. After last night, he wanted an explanation for everything happening between him and Kate too. They’d almost kissed before Dustin had flopped on the floor in his sleep. Well, that was how he remembered it. Had she pulled away from him after the sound or before it? He’d replayed the moment so many times in his head that he was starting to think he was remembering it wrong.

No matter what had happened between them, it wasn’t any of Dustin’s business, nor anyone else’s besides his and Kate’s. “Not… a goddamn… word. Got it, dipshit?”

Dustin put his hands up in surrender, his eyes wide in concern, but without another word, Steve went to the bathroom to try and fix his hair as best he could so at least he wouldn’t look like an idiot in that regard.

It hadn’t taken long for everyone to get ready for the day considering no one had a change of clothes with them except for Kate. Before an hour had passed, Nancy had already began rushing everyone into her car so they could get on with the day. It was on the car ride to Victor Creel’s old and abandoned house that Nancy had explained what she, Dustin, and Max had discovered that morning while everyone else was still asleep.

Whenever Max had been possessed by Vecna the day before she had seen parts of the house when he’d had her trapped, just a much more destroyed version of it. She’d tried drawing what she had seen; despite her lackluster art skills, Nancy had recognized enough parts of the house after looking through so many news reports about the Creel murders to know what was what she had seen.

As they pulled up to the boarded-up building, a shiver was sent down Kate’s spine. Despite its somewhat central location to town, no one had ever tried to enter the building since it had been boarded up decades ago. In fact, almost everyone in town liked to act like the murders had never even happened, especially her paternal grandfather whenever he’d still been alive. This wasn’t like breaking into Benny’s old diner to party. As her father had told her years ago whenever she’d first asked about the house, there was something especially dark and sinister about that place, something that neither of them could begin to understand. What had presumably been a beautiful house in 1959, the old and faded blue and white building had since been reclaimed by ivy and vines on the first level, the other exterior walls for the other floors of the building seeming to grow with mold while caked with dirt. There wasn’t a window that wasn’t boarded up, and the door had a large sheet of plywood over the front of it to detract any unwanted guests. There wasn’t a thing about the place that breathed “welcoming,” which probably explained why not even the most rebellious of kids had ever tried breaking into the old Creel house. Whatever remained inside needed to stay there.

Once the group had gotten out of Nancy’s car, they stood outside of the building hesitantly, almost as if they were all reassessing if they truly wanted to go in or not.

“Yeah, that’s not creepy,” Steve said to no one in particular.

Kate shrugged and started to move toward the house. Creepy or not, they had to do this for Max.

Steve and Kate had been the ones to pry the nails off of the wooden panel that covered the door, both having a hammer each as the rest of the group watched with anticipation.

“I mean, what exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this shithole?” he finally asked, turning to look at Nancy behind him before removing some more nails from the door. 

“We’re not sure,” Nancy replied. “We just… know this house is important to Vecna.” 

“Because Max saw it in Vecna’s red soup mind world?”

Kate stifled a laugh. “Red soup mind world” was not on the list of words she would have used to describe what Max had seen, but whatever worked for him, she supposed.

“Basically.”

“Great.”

“Maybe it holds a clue to where Vecna is. Why he’s back. Why he killed the Creels,” Dustin explained.

“And, more importantly, how to stop him before he comes back for Max,” Kate added.

“We… don’t think he’s in here, do we?” Lucas asked somewhat worriedly.

“Guess we’ll find out,” Max said nonchalantly. 

Steve looked over to Kate, still holding up the panel to make sure she wasn’t crushed by it. “Ready?”

She nodded in response, muttering a near inaudible “mhm” before they both let it fall to the ground with a loud thud.

Steve tried to open the door by the knob but found it only rattled in response. “It’s locked. Should I knock, see if anybody’s home?”

“No need.” Kate chuckled when she turned to look at Robin had found a loose brick from the porch. When Steve gave her an unconvinced look, she shrugged.

“I found a key.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, Steve took the brick from Robin and threw it through the glass door, apprehensively looking inside before sticking his hand down to unlock the door and open it. He whistled when he walked inside, waiting for the others to come in behind him.

Robin was the first after him, then Kate, Nancy, and the kids, now all holding flashlights in their hands. Kate stepped deeper into the house, trying to find something within the interior of the old Creel family home that wasn’t just abandoned furniture, dust, and cobwebs.

Lucas tried turning on one of the lamps as Steve shut the front door to the house. “Looks like someone forgot to pay their electric bill.”

When Dustin clicked on his flashlight, Steve’s eyebrows furrowed together. “Where’d everyone get those?”

Dustin turned around to face him and gave him a shocked look. “Do you need to be told everything? You’re not a child.”

Steve hesitated to respond, mostly because he had to bite his tongue so he didn’t sound like an ass. “Thank you.”

Dustin scoffed, pulling his backpack off of his back to hand it to him. “Back pocket.”

He pulled the last flashlight out of the backpack and let it drop to the floor whenever he turned it on.

Kate and Robin, who were much deeper into the house, opened the door to what was presumably the old parlor room. They scanned over it with their flashlights. Part of Kate couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was like the place hadn’t been touched since the night that the murders had happened. 

“I can’t believe they just… left everything here,” Kate said in disbelief. “I mean, not even the furniture was moved.”

“I guess a triple homicide isn’t good for resale value,” Robin replied.

Before she could respond, Max called, “Hey, guys?” Everyone walked over to where Max was standing near the staircase and looked in the direction of hre flashlight’s lit path. “You all see that, right?”

“That” in question was an old grandfather clock, one that looked like it hadn’t seen any use or dusting since the night the Creels had been murdered.

“Yeah.”

“Is… this what you saw?” Nancy asked, taking a step closer to her. “In your… visions?”

Max nodded hesitantly, almost as if she were still being haunted by those very visions.

“I mean, it’s… just a clock. Right?” Robin asked, her voice somewhat calm and steady despite her obvious anxiety staring at the antiquity. She walked around Max to get closer to the clock to try and inspect it. She wiped the glass face off, dust caking her hand. She turned back to the rest of the group. “Like a normal old clock.”

“Why is this wizard obsessed with clocks?” Steve asked, his face twisted in thought. “Maybe he’s, like, a clockmaker or something?”

“I think you cracked the case, Steve,” Dustin replied sarcastically.

Steve turned to him sharply and gave him a pointed look. Now was not the time to belittle his lack of critical thinking skills.

“All I know is… the answers are here,” Nancy said. “Somewhere. Okay, everyone stay in groups. Max, you’re with me.”

Steve turned to look at Kate, but before he could say anything to her, she had already grabbed Robin by the arm and pulled her toward the staircase, making her stumble clumsily behind her. 

“Rob, let’s go upstairs.”

“Come on, let’s go,” Max said to Lucas, making him follow behind her.

Whenever everyone else had left, Steve and Dustin exchanged glances, Steve’s bitter and Dustin’s content. Steve only sighed as he started to climb up the stairs.

“Why’d you sigh?”

“I didn’t sigh,” Steve said, already halfway up the stairs. “Just come on, dude.”

“I heard you!”

“W–We’re just always partners, okay?”

“What, you have a problem with that?” Dustin asked bitterly.

“It’d just be nice to, I don’t know, mix it up a bit.” If by mixing it up, he meant spending just five minutes alone with Kate.

“So what, I’m boring you? Is that it?”

“That is—No, the opposite—”

As they argued their way up the staircase to the second floor, Steve and Dustin had completely missed the evergrowing luminescence of the light fixture above them.

Not much time passed before Kate and Robin swept their section of the upper story for anything interesting or of importance. While they didn’t find anything, the silence their searching had provided gave Kate time to think about what they might later find. Even though the rest of the group had dropped it for now, she still hadn’t been able to let go of how the Creels were murdered. If the gate hadn’t been opened until 1983, how was Vecna in Hawkins in 1959? And why had Henry been spared from the same fate as his mother and sister? He died after spending a week in a coma, sure, but it wasn’t like his body had been disfigured with his eyes destroyed and his limbs snapped in half. Something about the lack of Henry’s injuries didn’t sit right with her. How had he fallen in a coma if he hadn’t really been hurt in the first place?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Robin finally said.

“What?”

She hummed a chuckle. “What’re you thinking about over there?”

Kate hesitated to explain her thoughts. She didn’t want Robin to think she was crazy. “I just—I don’t know, there’s just something… something about all of this isn’t right. It’s starting to drive me crazy.”

Robin grinned somewhat smugly. “What about it?”

She sighed. “Well, I mean, did any of you guys even think that maybe this asshole isn’t… I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t come from the Upside Down?”

Robin gave her a confused look. “Wait, I thought you were talking about you and Ste—” Whenever Kate looked back to glare at her in an unamused manner, she quickly dropped it. “Sorry. Continue.”

Kate avoided her gaze as she explained herself. “I don’t know, I just—I’ve been thinking. Maybe this thing is… from here. Our universe, dimension, whatever you wanna call it.” Whenever she turned around to look at Robin, who now looked even more confused, Kate only sighed. “Look, as far as we know, my sister opened the first gate in 1983, right?” When Robin nodded, Kate continued on. “So how did this Vecna dude just randomly kill half a family in 1959 never to be heard from again before now? He’s… He’s gotta be from here. Has to be. And there’s something not right about that Henry kid, either. Vecna must’ve… done something to him that we don’t know about. Maybe that’s how he got here in the first place. I mean, he didn’t even kill the kid. He just put him in a coma before disappearing again. That hasn’t happened to anyone else. It’s weird and no one’s brought it up but me.”

“Okay, I dig the kid in a coma being weird, but wouldn’t that mean that Vecna’s been stuck in the Upside Down for the past three decades?” she asked. “How… How would Vecna still be alive if he was from here? I mean, didn’t Will nearly kick the interdimensional bucket after just a week of being there?”

“Yeah, but…” Kate sighed in frustration, shrugging. “I don’t know. I’m still working on that.” She looked back at Robin for only a second, who still looked confused. She didn’t know how to say she thought it might have had something to do with her sister. As far as she knew, that was how all of this had started in the first place. Somehow this must have related to her sister, but she couldn’t figure out how yet. “Look, it’s just a theory, okay? I just… It’s stupid. Forget I said anything.”

Robin nodded, seeming to somewhat understand her point. Maybe she wasn’t that far off. As Kate led them into another room, Robin posed another question for her. “Hey, why’d you pick me? I mean, I’m honored, but I’m confused as to why you picked me over—” Steve. “I don’t know, like, anyone else?”

“Because you and I’ve always made a great team, Rob,” Kate answered, scanning the area she shined with her flashlight. “We translated a Russian code even though neither of us spoke Russian, remember?”

“And as convincing as that sounds, I am one hundred percent sure that is not the case.”

 Kate turned back to look at Robin and gave her a questionable look. “What d’you mean?”

She hesitated. She didn’t want to get murdered inside of this house too. “As incredible of a team we make, you and I both know you picked me before someone else could pick you.”

She stopped in her tracks, sighing softly. “That’s not… true.”

Robin took a step closer to her, almost as if she were scared to get too close. “I know it’s difficult for you to accept, but he, very obviously, still has feelings for you. A lot of them. I mean, we all saw you guys this morning—”

“You all saw it?” She gave a nod, trying to fight her smile. “Yeah, we all saw you two snuggled up in each other adorably, so don’t even try to deny you don’t still have feelings for him too. I know you. Both of you, and you both are driving me insane with your inability to communicate with one another. You’re just being stubborn because you don’t want to admit you were wrong for breaking up with him, and he’s scared to bring it up because he doesn’t want to lose you again, so please, for my sake, talk to him. You have no idea what I’ve been through to get him to where he is now. I can’t handle another month of this shit, never mind the rest of my life. It’s actually starting to kill me.”

Kate didn’t know what to say to Robin. She hadn’t realized that the lack of her and Steve’s relationship was affecting her friends too, but she should have known better. Of course Robin was tired of it. Considering how disappointed Robin had been with her for the months after she’d done it, even if she hadn’t admitted it to her directly, she could only imagine what it had been like dealing with them both for months on end.

All of it only made her think of Steve again. Yesterday when he’d said that he still cared about her even if she hated herself. Last night when they’d fallen asleep next to each other and inevitably ended up tangled in one another. When they had nearly kissed and she’d been the one to fuck it up. She wished now more than anything that she wouldn’t have pulled away. That she wouldn’t have gotten scared. Their lips had been so close she could feel the heat radiating off of him; Kate could still imagine it even now. She wished she would have just closed the gap sooner, just before something could have distracted them.

Kate knew, however, that none of that would have been fair to Steve. She’d been the one to cut things off with him. Considering he’d gone out with so many girls in the past couple of months that Robin couldn’t begin to keep up with them, Kate didn’t think Steve was ready to settle down again, especially not with the very girl that had broken up with him. If anything, he was just dating around for fun now. No matter how she felt about him, he had very obviously moved on from her. Steve probably wouldn’t get back with her now even if she begged him to. Even if she wanted more than anything to be with him again, she couldn’t curse him with her troubles. Not again.

“Kate?”

With the call of her name, she shook her head to try and pull herself out of her thoughts. Kate started walking again, her flashlight illuminating her path. “Let’s keep going, okay? I hate this fucking house.”

When Robin followed behind her, this time she didn’t ask any questions, especially not about the boy that was just down the hall from them. Steve, on the other hand, was only wishing he would have spoken up before he was paired up with Dustin.

It wasn’t like he was stuck with him or anything. He loved Dustin despite the fact that the kid had started loving Eddie Munson more than him. Even though under normal circumstances he would love spending time with Dustin, none of that would make up for the fact that he could have been alone with Kate right now.

He knew he should have been focused on the task at hand, but he couldn’t help but want to talk to her despite everything else going on. How could he not? Their late-night conversation was progress in their relationship. He wanted to talk to her about how he could help her, ask her what he could do to help her. More than anything, he wanted to ask her about that damn kiss. Well, the non-kiss, the close-to-a-kiss, really, but it had still happened. Part of him thought he had dreamt it, but her avoidance of him since they’d woken up that morning told him otherwise. He knew he couldn’t have been the only one that felt the chemistry between them last night, even if it was only for a second.

Steve had replayed that moment in his head so many times he could hardly keep it straight anymore. He could still feel her face in his hand, her hair against his skin. God, he wished he would have been quicker. Nearly kissing her was the closest he’d felt to right since she’d dumped him.

Part of him thought to accept it as a fluke. She’d been upset and had been swept up in the emotion of it all. The other part of him, though, knew that there must have still been something between them. He hoped for that, anyway. Kate was a straight forward enough girl—if she didn’t still feel at least something for him, wouldn’t she have just pushed him away and called him a presumptuous asshole? That was why he wanted to talk to her. Needed to talk to her as soon as possible. He couldn’t just give up on her now if there was a fraction of a chance that she still felt the same way she had about him before.

For that reason alone, he hated that he was partnered with Dustin.

“I get why you freaked out about Nancy the other day now,” Dustin finally said, breaking the silence between them.

Steve gave him a confused look whenever he turned to look at him. “What?”

“You know, the other day when you lost your shit because she was going alone somewhere?” he elaborated. “She was the only girl you ever really liked other than Kate. You were just projecting about—”

“What? No, that’s not—” Steve cut himself off to try and collect himself. If he got flustered, that would only make things worse. “It’s not… like that.”

“Yeah? Well, it certainly looked like that this morning.”

“It’s not that simple, Henderson,” Steve warned. He didn’t want to talk about it with him, of all people.

“Of course not. Because things have always been so simple between you and Kate.”

“Will you shut up about Kathy, please?” he whispered somewhat harshly. “You’re being… We broke up months ago, why would I—” He cut himself off to sigh. “For your information, I’ve gone out with other girls since then, okay? A lot of them, and—”

“And none of them have even held a candle to her, have they?”

That was what hurt even more. Dustin was right: even Nancy hadn’t ever been close to what Kate had been for him. Even if she was still broken, still a husk of the girl she used to be, he still loved her. He didn’t care how she was or how she acted—he would love every form of her. He hadn’t even minded all that much when she’d pulled a gun on him again on instinct, almost hesitating to drop it whenever she finally realized who she was pointing it at. He hadn’t minded her shutting him out, only because he knew she had probably wanted the space to grieve. He hadn’t minded whenever she’d dumped him only because he’d thought that she needed to be alone in the city, maybe just for a bit of time while she sorted her thoughts. He hadn’t nor wouldn’t mind anything that she would throw at him because she was Kate. He wished more than anything that he could make everything better for her, to tell her that he loved her and make all of her pain go away, but he knew he couldn’t. Kate had pushed him away, and for now, the best he could do was push back. All he could do was be there for her as best he could—that or keep the kids from bothering her too much.

“Hey, uh, Henderson?” he finally asked to break the silence again, following him into what had presumably been a bedroom.

“Yeah?”

“Could you maybe, uh… clarify what sort of clues we’re supposed to be looking for here?”

Dustin stopped in his tracks, not turning to look at Steve as he spoke in a posh British accent. “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” Dustin turned around to look at Steve with a smile, which he immediately dropped whenever Steve gave him a confused look. “Sherlock Holmes.” Dustin scoffed and walked away whenever Steve’s expression didn’t change.

“That’s great,” Steve finally said, walking in the direction opposite of him and moving toward the bathroom. “Thanks. That’s great. Really helpful.” Whenever Dustin was far enough away, he mumbled to himself, “Sherlock…”

He shined his flashlight over the vent in the floor, something inside of the vent reflecting the light back to him. Curiosity got the best of him, and he kneeled down next to it and pulled the cover off of the vent before reaching his hand down to grab one of the many jars at the bottom of it.

Steve didn’t know what to think of the jar he’d picked up: leaves filled the bottom of it, and a spider lay dead on some of the sticks that were inside of the jar, cobwebs dusting the leafless limbs. He started to set it back down into the vent when he felt something crawling on him, turning to find a spider on his shoulder.

He jumped back quickly and dropped the jar on the tile floor, gasping as he tried to brush the black widow off of himself frantically. He ran backward into the hallway, walking through the entrance of the bathroom and more cobwebs. He didn’t even notice how they completely covered his hair as he tried to brush the spider off of himself.

“Jesus Christ,” Kate breathed out, jumping as Steve manically continued to brush himself off in front of her—he’d almost collided with her in the hallway. “Wh–What the fuck are you doing? What’s wrong?”

“There was a spider,” he said softly, still rubbing his hand against his arm to make sure it was gone. He almost sounded out of breath as he spoke. “It was a black widow.” Whenever he turned around, shining his flashlight in front of him, he quickly closed the bathroom door. “Don’t go in there.”

“Okay? Oh, shit,” Kate responded, finally seeing the mess of cobwebs that he’d gotten into his hair. She’d tried pulling some of them out of his hair, but Steve ran his fingers through it, starting to move forward as if he were trying to walk away from her in worry. “Wait, just…”

“What?” Steve said as he walked in front of a dusty mirror with his voice still panicked. “Something? Shit. O–Okay.”

“Wait. Stop moving!” she said, making him stop in front of the mirror and stop attempting to pull the cobwebs out of his own hair. “Stop. I just… I got it. I got it. Just stand still for a sec, okay? Don’t move.”

He hesitated, pressing his lips together awkwardly. This hadn’t been what he meant by wanting to be alone with her. “Thank you.”

“If there’s a spider nesting in there, you’re never gonna find it til it lays eggs and all the babies spill out,” Robin said evasively from down the hall, trying her best to freak Steve out further.

“What’s wrong with you?” Steve asked as Kate pressed her lips together to suppress a laugh. 

Robin only chuckled in response.

“Robin, seriously!” Whenever her fingers ran against his scalp, Steve turned his head back so Kate could start pulling at the cobwebs again. She tried her best to not start laughing, pressing her lips together tightly. “She’s got problems.”

“I don’t know, she might be right. We might have to shave your head.”

“What?”

She shrugged. “No, I’m serious. This is, like… bad. Really bad. I–I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to get all of this out without at least cutting a good bit of your hair off. You’re gonna have to start all over by the looks of it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m probably gonna have to buzz it when we get back,” she said without wavering.

“Kathy, that’s not funny, okay? Seriously.”

“To you,” she said, trying to stop her chuckling. Whenever he didn’t reply to her, she sighed. “I’m sorry, I’m just teasing. The fact that you’re panicking this much over your hair is hilarious, by the way.”

“Do you… Do you both just enjoy torturing me or something?” he asked somewhat bitterly.

“No! No, it’s not that, it’s just…” She stifled a laugh. “You’re just really particular about your hair. You always have been. I mean, the fact that this happened to you over anyone in this house right now? It just makes you an easy target.”

He scoffed and almost ran his hands through his hair, but he stopped himself. “Easy target, my ass. Admit it. You two just like watching me suffer.”

She smiled, pressing her lips together. “So, are you still freaking out?”

Steve hesitated to respond to her. He might have still been a bit freaked out that she had proposed to shave his head, but that was beside the point. Because of that, he decided he needed to change the subject so he wouldn’t give himself a heart attack. “You know, speaking of you and Robin, it’s cool you two still talk. That you’re, like… I don’t know, still friends.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, I don’t know, I just… You stopped talking to me, so I figured you would—” He cut himself off. Things were different with him, and he should have known that by now. “You know, maybe after we find Vecna, kill him… you know, save the world and stuff, maybe we can all go out or something. You know, like old times.” Steve turned to the side, almost as if he were trying to see her to gauge her reaction. “You know? Me, you, Robin, Nance if she’s down. Jonathan when he’s back.” Steve hesitated to go on, almost as if he were waiting on her response.

“Yeah, maybe you could bring one of those girls you’ve been going out with,” Kate said nonchalantly. She hadn’t meant it as a dig and rather as a serious statement, but she wanted to slap herself after she’d said it. That was definitely not how he was going to take that.

“It’s not like we’re dating. Me and—I’m not dating any of them. Not really. And I haven’t slept with any of them either. None of ‘em are like, uh… Ro–Robin told you? Right? And I’m not dating Robin either, so—”

“Yeah, I know,” Kate said softly, still picking the cobwebs out of his hair as she tried not to smile at his nervous rambling. “That’s… very obvious. I think I have a better chance with her than you do.”

“Platonic with a capital P!” Robin said from down the hall where she still lingered close by.

“Yep. Thank you,” Steve said loud enough for Robin to hear.

Robin put a thumb up in response, still looking away from the two of them as she continued to investigate the hallway (but also eavesdrop on their conversation).

“Seriously, though, I’m not… those girls don’t matter. Most of the dates I’ve gone on have been pretty shit. I mean, I’ve only gone on so many dates because none of them are right for me, you know? None of them are—” He cut himself off to sigh. You. “They’re just not… None of them right for me, okay?”

“Wait, so you seriously haven’t… slept with any of them?” Kate asked. She found that somewhat hard to believe considering his track record before dating Nancy.

“Not a one.” He chuckled sadly. “I’ve barely liked any of them enough to warrant much more than kissing them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If I don’t like them enough to screw around with ‘em, I’m certainly not gonna bring them around you. O–Or, you know, any of my friends.”

She tried to ignore the way her heart was beating in her chest. “Hm. Okay. So just you, me, Rob, Nance, and Jon, then, after we save the world and stuff, is your request?”

“I mean… I don’t know. I just—I don’t only want to see you when the world’s about to end, you know?” He paused, almost as if he was hesitating to go on. “I miss you.”

Kate pressed her lips together again for a moment, almost as if she were thinking about how to word something. “Maybe… Maybe you could come visit sometime, or something. Rob, too, obviously. Get you guys out of Hawkins for a while and come see the city.”

“Just us?”

“I mean, yeah, until I get an apartment next semester. Pretty sure it would be real tight if much more than you two came to visit. I mean, you and Rob at the same time is already pushing it. You might have to sleep on my desk.”

He chuckled.

“But I’m serious. I think that’d be really great if you, uh… if you came to visit.”

He smiled. “I’ll consider it.”

She pulled the last cobweb out of his hair, then took a deep breath as she tried to suppress her smile. “Okay, your hair’s been saved. No buzzcut needed.”

He fluffed it out in the back once, then turned around to look back at her. “Great. Thanks.” He chuckled before taking a step closer to her. “Well… Great. Um…” He stared back at her awkwardly, almost not knowing what to say. If Robin hadn’t been so close by and probably eavesdropping, maybe he would finish the job he’d started last night. After all that, though, he knew that right now wasn’t the time. “Guess we should, uh… get back to the investigation.”

Kate nodded in response, pressing her lips together still.

“The obvious things are not what… people… observe. Or do—don’t observe. Or…” He racked his brain to try and remember what the hell Dustin had said to him only five minutes ago. When Kate gave him a confused look, he stopped as to not make even more of a fool out of himself, nodding once. “Sherlock Holmes.”

Kate couldn’t help but smile at him as he walked away, almost dumbstruck before she walked toward Robin. “What?”

And once again, Kate couldn’t help but smile because of the antics of the boy just down the hall from her.

next chapter

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